


Say The Words That I Can't Say

by howardently



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-02-24 04:55:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2568959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howardently/pseuds/howardently
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Season 2 AU exploring the things that might have happened if Finn and Rae had sex in the caravan. Continuation of A Little Liquid Courage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Diary, I’m sorry if my handwriting’s gone a bit off-piste but last night I experienced a sex-quake so powerful I’m still feeling the tremors today. I’ve wasted five pages of this notebook experimenting with every possible combination of the words “FINN”, “ME”, “SHAGGED” and “AND” and I still can’t believe it happened. Yes, Diary, our bodies were united for a glorious time of amorous congress and nothing terrible occurred. I’m so relieved I want to shout it from the rooftops or hire one of those banners you attach to planes. Who’d have thought a girl who can barely look at herself in the mirror would now know what those women’s magazines mean when they talk about a “considerate lover”. If Finn had paid any more attention to the needs of my pleasure garden it would have fallen off. He-

 

“Rae, love! Phone’s for you!” Linda’s voice echoed up the stairs and through Rae’s open door, startling her from where she had been attempting to recount the miraculous events from the night before. Rae tapped the fuzzy end of her pen against her lips before closing it in her diary to hold her page. Rae sighed heavily and lumbered down the stairs in annoyance.

“Who is it, Mum?” Rae asked as she turned the corner of the stairwell. She wasn’t sure if she could stand anymore of Chloe’s interrogation about the camping trip. Rae’d only hung up with her an hour before.

“It’s Finn.” Linda answered, taking a deliberate sip of her tea as she leaned against the kitchen counter and stared blankly at Rae.

“Finn?” Rae was surprised, and flushed slightly with pleasure. “I’m gonna take it upstairs, alright?”

“You’re already down here, Rae. Just take your phone call here.” Linda smirked a little and settled in, apparently determined to watch her daughter talk on the phone. 

“Mum!” Rae moaned in aggravation and rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. “I’m going to take it upstairs. Ugh. Just… just… hang it up when I get there, yeah?”

Rae turned out of the kitchen and took the stairs two at a time, running her fingers along the wall as she entered her mother’s room. She shut the door tightly, sitting down on the edge of bed and grabbing for the phone. 

“Ok!” She screeched in the vague direction of downstairs, holding the phone away from her face. She took a moment to moderate her breathing before she put her ear to the receiver.

“And when might we get to see you again, love?” Linda’s voice sounded a bit tinny with both receivers on the line.

“Errrr… I’m not sure, Mrs. Bouchtat. Uh… soon I hope?”

“Mum! I said hang it up when you heard me! God!” Rae cried in frustration, horrified that her mother was talking to Finn. What if she asked about camping? What if he somehow accidentally told Linda that he’d just deflowered her daughter? He wouldn’t do that, she was sure. But maybe Linda would just know. Could she just know?  
Linda had looked at Rae a little funny all day. God, would people be able to tell just from looking at her?

“Rae Earl, I swear… no respect…” Linda grumbled into the phone as she disconnected. 

Finn’s low chuckle filtered down the line and Rae shook her head to clear it. Finn had been calling more since their date, but it was still an infrequent enough occurrence that Rae’s heart always pounded to hear his voice through the receiver.

“Finn?” 

“Hey, Rae-Rae.” She could almost hear him smiling, and her own lips curled up in response. She twirled the phone cord around her finger and closed her eyes.

“So…” she said after a long moment of waiting for him to speak.

“So?”

“What’s up, numpty? I just saw you a couple of hours ago, you can’t have missed me too much since then.” Rae teased, unsure of why he was calling. She had missed  
him terribly in the hours since he dropped her off, but she’d never admit that.

“Oh, um, yeah…” Finn laughed, sounding a bit throaty. Rae pressed her eyes shut tighter and tried to imagine what he was doing. Was he lying in bed while talking to her? Leaning up against the wall in the lounge? She’d bet money he was sucking his lip just then. “I just rang to see if you might want to meet up before college in the morning? Go round to the cafe for a brew?”

“Er… I thought we were? Aren’t we meeting the gang there so we can all walk together?”

“Oh, um... Yeah. Yeah. I mean we are, but I thought maybe me an’ you could go round a bit early, just the two of us.” Finn rambled adorably.

Rae pressed her lips together to fight the grin that threatened to overtake her face. It was almost too much. She felt as if something inside of her was lighter than gravity and even the weight of her too-big body couldn’t keep her on the earth. 

“You are missing me, aren’t you? “ Rae laughed. She could hear a faint scuffle on the other end before Finn replied.

“Rae…” He sounded a bit like he was pleading, but for what she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t see his face to determine what he was thinking. She wondered if he was blushing. 

“Alright, then. What time?” Her reply came out perfectly breezy, and Rae congratulated herself on keeping her internal giddiness out of her voice.

“Yeah?” Finn replied, and she could picture the smile on his face; it was definitely the one that was soft around the corners, about half watt, with his eyebrows raised just a fraction. “How ‘bout we meet at the cafe around 7? Nobody else is supposed to be there til 8.”

“Sounds good. “ Rae replied, and a silence fell between them again. Rae cursed herself inwardly- their phone conversations were prone to a bit too much silence. Rae had never been great on the phone, always too caught up in her own head, and Finn was pretty quiet regardless. 

“So, uh, yeah, good then.” Finn cleared his throat, and when he spoke again his voice was softer. “I’ll see you tomorrow. G’night Rae.”

“Night Finn.” She replied, and they both stayed on the line, listening to the other breathe, unwilling to let the conversation end. Finally, Rae laughed. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Night!”

“Night.”

Rae gently placed the phone back in its cradle, staring at it incredulously for a minute before rising to return to her bedroom. She tugged at the tie on her robe and crossed the hall, shutting her door and leaning back against it for a minute. She tilted her head back towards the ceiling, scrunching her face and closing her eyes, blissfully happy to be Finn Nelson’s girlfriend. She grabbed her diary as she crossed the room to flop on the bed, hugging it to her chest and letting out an undignified squeal of elation that she hoped no one would ever hear. 

 

“For all that is holy, Finn, it’s way too early to be up and about. There’s nothin’ in the world that’s worth gettin’ up this early.” Rae squinted at him through her sunnies, face contorted in exaggerated disgust. He had been leaning casually against the low wall outside the café, but he straightened and grinned as she approached. 

“And good mornin’ to you too, Rae.” He laughed, leaning in to place a hand on her cheek and kiss her lightly.

Rae thought it felt like a morning kiss; it was brief and sweet and tasted a bit like tea. She wrinkled her nose at him in a token protest, but she could feel the smile flirting around the corners of her mouth. He was just too irresistible, she couldn’t stay properly disgruntled. Finn pulled back and smiled warmly at her, that soft smile 

Rae was beginning to realize was just for her. She shook her head as she let her happiness overtake her lips, it was no use. Finn had a special smile just for her, and he was holding out his hand to lead her into the café, and he tasted like tea, and a fizzy sort of happiness beat out the grumpiness of the early hour, and she just couldn’t stop smiling. Rae twined her fingers with Finn’s and he pulled her into the café and parked her at a table. 

“Right, what’ll you have? My shout.” He stood in front of the table and looked at her expectantly, thumbs tucked under the strap of his messenger bag. Rae felt his words prick the bubble of happiness within her, and swallowed as she felt it deflate slowly. She hadn’t realized she’d actually have to eat in front of him at this breakfast, though she should have. She’d just been so caught up in her pleasure that Finn actually wanted to see her that she’d forgotten about the rest. 

“Oh, I’m fine.” Her voice sounded small and strangled to her own ears, so it didn’t surprise her when Finn cocked his head at her in confusion.

“Whaddya mean? I know you didn’t eat before you came, what with all your grumblin’ about the hour.”

“Oh, uh…” Rae scrambled to find a reasonable excuse in her sleep-deprived brain. “I’m not really much of a breakfast eater. You know. It’s too early.”

She tried to hold in her sigh of relief when he shrugged and turned away to order. She actually wasn’t hungry, she was too busy feeling sick and anxious over the impending day at college. She had stared blankly at the contents of her closet for a long time this morning, debating about what she could wear today that would both exemplify who she was and help her blend into the background at school. Well, as much as someone her size could blend in. She’d ended up throwing on her Oasis shirt and a skirt when she looked at the clock and realized that if she debated any further, she’d be hopelessly late to meet Finn. And meeting Finn might be the only part of this day that was actually tolerable.

Rae watched Finn order, envying him for the ease he seemed to exude all the time. He was smiling at the check-out girl, and Rae felt a brief moment of worry before he turned to look at her with raised eyebrows and the hint of a grin. Rae could feel the eyes of the cashier on her, could feel her incredulity from across the room, and dropped her eyes back to the tabletop. She used a single finger to trace patterns with a bit of condensation, writing her name in swirly letters, then Finn’s. She had just finished the curve of a heart when Finn slid a tray down onto the table.

“Tea and toast, then.” He doled out the food, placing a plate and a mug in front of her and pulling the tray towards him. Rae frowned at the food and pulled a face at Finn, eliciting a laugh from him. “It’s just toast, girl. Don’ give me that look.”

“Thanks.” Rae said softly, taking a sip of the tea. It was strong and sweet and she could feel it warming her bones and chasing away the fog of morning. “Mmmm.”

“Good?” Finn asked, diving into his food with gusto. He ate like it been years since his last meal, and Rae could feel her features rearrange to show her vague revulsion. He grinned at her expression, looking irrepressibly happy, and mumbled though a mouth full of food. “What?” 

“Nothin’… It’s just…” She cocked her head to the side. “You’re such a boy.”

“Well, thank you very much for noticing, Rachel.” He chuckled, shaking his head.

“You’re very welcome, Finnley.” Rae couldn’t help but taunt him. He was so cute with his cheeks full of food, grinning at her across the table. Rae closed her eyes for a minute so she could lock this memory away, sipping her tea again to cover the sentimental action. 

“You’re not eatin’.” Finn accused, pointing a finger at her toast. Rae flushed and picked up a slice, nibbling a bit on a corner. It was dry, and she set it back on the place and reached for a jelly packet. 

“Am too. See?” Rae spread the jelly over the triangle of toast with a precision borne of her desire to postpone the actual eating, eyes never leaving the knife. After a few long seconds of careful spreading, she sighed and picked up the toast. Finn watched as she took a bite and licked the jelly off her lips, clearing his throat.

“You know…” He said lowly, sucking at his bottom lip and angling his head as he looked at her. His expression was dark and she couldn’t quite determine what it meant. “My da’s at work. We could just skip college and go back to mine…”

Rae tilted her head to the side, unconsciously mirroring the angle of his neck, and let a slow grin spread across her lips. She considered what it’d be like to blow off school and spend the day at Finn’s. They’d probably lie in his bed, listen to records, argue playfully over what Oasis album was better. They’d almost certainly make out, and likely try a repeat of some of the things they’d done in the caravan. Maybe even some new things. There were a few things she was anxious to try. Rae thought about his hands on her skin, sliding under her shirt, of him peeling off her clothes… and then she remembered the thoroughly unsexy underwear she’d put on this morning. Plain old white cotton, definitely not something she wanted Finn to see. She shook her head and cleared her throat, trying to dispel the haze of longing that had settled on her. 

“You really don’t want to go to school, do you Finnley?” She asked, and Finn scowled down at the table. Rae instantly wished she could take it back, bring back that desirous expression he’d just worn. She was way too enamored with that expression, considering the short amount of time that he’d been openly wearing it. 

“No, I really don’t.” Finn answered, spearing his last sausage with his fork and bringing it to his mouth.

“Why? I mean, I don’ wanna go either, but is there a particular reason you don’t like college?”

“I dunno. “ He chewed slowly, obviously considering his words. “I guess… it’s jus’… people are always lookin’ at me, y’know? Talkin’ about me and shit. I hate it. You know what I mean?”

Rae thought about Finn Nelson, fittest lad in school, footy star, mysterious, sexy, desired by all the girls in Lincolnshire. She thought about all the things she’d heard about him, even as out of touch as she was. She could easily picture how the girls would twitter over him, a gaggle of hens clucking about. She almost laughed at the image. He was so gorgeous he couldn’t help but draw attention. Of course people talked about him.

But people talked about her too. People always talked about her, and they didn’t talk about her anything like they did about him. For her it was always bad, always mean, always to make her feel more like shit than she already did. The buoyancy she’d felt only moments before at Finn’s lusty gaze faded away, and she was left feeling heavy, far heavier than her weight could account for. God, she was just gonna drag Finn down. Drag him down like she always dragged the people she cared about down into the mire and shit of being her. 

“Yeah.” She replied finally, but it came out a little choked. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I do know what you mean.”

Finn’s thoughtful eyes studied her for a long minute as he ate the last bites of his breakfast. She couldn’t meet his gaze for fear she’d give away how much she knew about people talking behind your back. She desperately didn’t want him to know how bad it was for her, she wanted to keep that horrible part of herself firmly separated from this one good thing. 

“Rae…” Finn began carefully, and Rae focused intently on a scratch in the tabletop. She could feel what was coming, could feel the cautious way he was choosing his words. “Rae, that day with Big G… Does that happen a lot?”

She raised her eyes to his briefly, just long enough to shrug in answer. She really really didn’t want to get into it. How pathetic he must think she is, and he barely knows any of it. He’d be disgusted if he knew what people really thought of her, thought of them together. If he knew what people said to her all the time, the way people looked… well, he’d leave her faster than she could say ‘jabba.’ Who would ever put up with that… especially just to be with her?

She could feel the panic creeping in, feel the blackness inching in over her skull. She lowered her head even further, squeezing her eyes shut and debating what to do. Should she duck to the loo? He might believe that she just suddenly had to pee, he might let her go and just drop the subject all together. Or, more likely, he’d just know how upset she was, get a glimpse into the crazy he was signing up for being with her. She didn’t want him to see, but her head was pounding, her heart thrumming faster and faster. It was getting to the point where she didn’t really have a choice about whether or not he saw. It was happening. Right here, right now. 

Put your hands on something flat. She spread her palms on the table, counted to ten slowly, and focused on slowing her breathing and calming herself. The anxiety slowly began to dissipate, and after a couple of minutes, she felt Finn’s hand slide over hers and grip lightly. She opened her eyes, which were undoubtedly teary, and met his concerned gaze. His lips were parted slightly, and his eyebrows were furrowed in a way that made them look like little fuzzy caterpillars. She reached out to stroke one with a fingertip before she realized that her hands had moved. She must be low on oxygen from her panicked breathing, or else she would have repressed the instinct. Finn reached up to catch her hand as she tried to snatch it back, and pressed a kiss to her palm.

“You okay?” He asked as he released her hand, and his forehead scrunched back up again. Rae was horrified at herself, having a panic attack right there at the table with Finn. She must want him to leave, letting him see all her mad like that.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Sorry.” She kept her gaze fixed on the table, conscious of the redness of her eyes and how close to tears she was.

“Rae…” He began, and she winced at the frustration in his voice as he said her name. She braced herself for the inevitable. “Rae… I…”

She chanced a peek at him and found him shaking his head, shoulders raised and eyes sad. She averted her gaze quickly, closing her eyes and picking at her nails under the table. She waited. Any moment now. It was all going to come crashing down any moment. The movement of the table coupled startled her, and she looked up in time to catch him rounding the table in two quick strides. He sat in a blur, grabbed her face with both hands and pressed his lips to hers in a crushing kiss. Rae’s surprise kept her from reacting for several seconds, but her body soon caught on and began moving against him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, slid half off the chair to press herself closer to him.

She could taste his frustration in the biting intensity of the kiss. This wasn’t like the sweetness of yesterday’s kisses, or the slow burn of the ones in the caravan. This was new, all rough edges and achiness. This was a kiss to replace the words he couldn’t find. And Rae found she could speak this language with perfect proficiency. She poured her own repressed feelings back into him; a slash of her tongue for her worry that he’d leave, a nibble of his bottom lip for her disgust at herself, a pressing in for the fear she felt at what others will say. They sat there, kissing into each other all the things they couldn’t say, clinging to each other, the outside world lost to them. 

Finn pulled back when the check-out girl appeared at the end of their table and cleared her throat loudly, but he kept her face sandwiched between his palms and his eyes locked on hers. Rae reeled, sucking in great gasps of air and trying to slow her pounding heart.

“Yes?” He asked coolly, finally looking up at the girl who’d unsuccessfully tried to flirt with him just a few minutes before.

“Right… Can you guys just… not do that here… right now? It’s pretty gross. It’s 7:30 in the morning.” Rae couldn’t see the girl’s face, but a sneer was evident in her voice.

“Piss off.” Finn muttered, and returned to looking at Rae, stroking her cheek and giving her a quick, gentle kiss. The corners of his mouth lifted up a little in that special smile that he saved just for her, and Rae’s shallow breaths caught in her throat. So he wasn’t breaking up with her then.

“You alright, girl?” He asked, ducking his head to keep his eyes fixed on hers. She nodded dazedly and smiled at him. Her head couldn’t quite catch up with reality. Finn was not scared off by her going a bit nutty in front of him. He’d just kissed her like he couldn’t get enough of her, not like he was ready to bolt at all.  
Finn let go of her face and slid back to sit in his chair properly, but he kept a hand covering hers where it sat on her thigh. They sat in silence for a minute. Rae wasn’t sure where to go from there, what to say following her embarrassing outburst and his attack of kissing. They were still so shit with words in regards to one another, and even though the kiss was full of emotion, she had no idea what he was actually thinking. 

As they sat there, dumbly staring at each other, scrambling for what to say, Rae became aware of the cashier gabbing to a friend about them. She was wondering aloud how such a scrubber had caught a fit lad like that one. Her heart sank again, and she hoped against all hope that Finn wouldn’t hear. She stumbled over herself to fill the space with chatter so he wouldn’t be able to hear the girls across the room.

“So, uh… Chloe tried to make a move on Archie over the weekend. Tried to get off with him in the tent, can you believe it?” She laughed overly loudly, and she winced at the spectacle she was making of herself once again.

“Yeah, Arch told me about it last night.” Finn laughed, and his eyebrows climbed towards his forehead. He looked so sweet and adorable, half smiling like that, that Rae blushed. God, she loved him. She smiled mischievously, seeing an opportunity to tease him.

“You had a bit of a debrief, did you? You two are a couple of old biddies, gossipin’ like that.”

“Oh, like you didn’t talk to Chloe about it?” He countered, an incredulous grin spreading across his face. This is what they were good at, and his pleasure at the return to normal conversation was evident.

“Ugh. At length.” Rae groaned, and bit her lip when she noticed the tips of his ears turning red. 

“Erm… What did you tell her?” He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced over at the girls behind the counter, frowning a little. Rae twisted in her seat and saw the girls whispering together and laughing, looking in their direction. She dove into her teasing, fumbling a bit for words as she tried to distract him. 

“Oh, what didn’t I tell her? I told her all about that little mole on your back just above your bum and about how you made a special seduction mixtape and how you…” She trailed off as the cashier gave a particularly loud trill of laughter. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was clear on Finn’s face that he suspected they were laughing at her, at them. Rae felt humiliation wash over her, felt her face redden and her eyes sting.

“Finn.” She tried weakly to get his attention, but he was now scowling at the cashier, his hand leaving hers to ball into a fist at his side. She touched his knee. “Finn.”

Finally, he turned to look at her again, his scowl softening as he took in her wide, scared eyes. They were doing that bugging out thing again, she knew, but it was worth him seeing her stupid ridiculous face if he forgot about the gossiping girls. He visibly shook himself out of whatever he’d been thinking and focused on her. 

“I’m sorry, what? I missed it.” He smiled at her ruefully, but she lost his attention again when an older man came out from the back and began to scold the girls for not working properly. Rae felt a surge of relief when they scattered to different parts of the shop, too far away from one another to be taking the piss out of her. They were safe, Finn wasn’t going to hear what people said about her. Well, they were safe for now.

Finn’s words from earlier replayed in her head. People are always lookin’ at me, talkin’ about me and shit. I hate it. She had a sudden vision of what it was going to be like when they walked into college together. She could see all the inquisitive, disgusted faces. She could picture the gossiping the girls would do behind their hands, the way the boys would laugh and call her a slut and him a chubby-chaser. If he hated people talking about him now, when it was all good things, how much more was he going to hate it when they were mocking him for going out with her? He had no idea of how bad it could get, but he’d know soon enough. 

He seemed to really like her. He’d said all those lovely things the other night, said she was beautiful and that he’d been half in love with her from the start. He wasn’t repulsed by her panic attack, and he kissed her like he never wanted to stop. Finn wanted her, but how much was gonna be too much? Did he want her enough to deal with all the shit that followed her around like a raincloud? At what point would what people said be too much for him? How much would it take before it wouldn’t be worth it to go out with her, before she wouldn’t be worth it? Not much, she’d bet. But it’d probably be just long enough for her to fall even more in love with him than she already was, long enough to make the pain unbearable when he did dump her.

Fucking college. She hated college.

“So, what did you tell Chloe?” Finn asked, not noticing her distraction or distress. He leaned over, elbows on knees, pulling her hand into his where they dangled between his knees. He played with her fingers, shooting her a sweet half-smile. But she was well into a frenzy and couldn’t bear to let herself be comforted by his adorableness. 

What on earth was she gonna do? How could she stop the shit-storm that was brewing on the horizon? How could she prevent Finn from suffering the fallout of being her boyfriend? She couldn’t, wouldn’t break up with him. The only solution was for them to pretend they weren’t dating while they were at college. If they could just not kiss or hold hands for those few hours on the school grounds, they might be able to derail the gossip train. Maybe if they could just keep their relationship separate from college, they’d be able to keep it from imploding, collapsing under the weight of the stares and smirks and name-calling. It was the only real chance they had.

“Finn…” She began, unsure of how to bring it up. It was a delicate matter; she really didn’t want him to think that she wanted to keep him a secret. Of course she wanted everyone to know that Finn Nelson, incredible, sweet, kind, fit-as-fuck Finn Nelson, was her boyfriend. Who wouldn’t be proud to be on his arm? It was just that she didn’t want him to have to claim her. She didn’t want him to have to suffer the indignity of having fat, mad, Rae Earl for a girlfriend. But how could she tell him that without sounding even madder than she already did? She ran through possible phrases in her head, ways to make it sound as good an option to him as it did to her.

“Maybe we should keep… us… under wraps, at least while we’re at school?” She settled with, forcing herself to refrain from wincing. She looked down at their hands, just staring at them as he stilled his careless caress. 

“You what?” He sounded shocked and incredulous, and she couldn’t really blame him. Who knows what he was thinking? He still thought they were talking about what she’d told Chloe. But she had to make him understand. This was a good option, maybe even the only option.

“It’s just…” She hurried to explain. “You don’ like people talkin’ about ya. It might be best to just keep us quiet. Not give them anything to talk about.”

Finn dropped her hand and leaned back in his chair, mouth hanging open. She couldn’t totally interpret his face, but she thought that he looked wounded and maybe a little scared, and Rae felt her heart drop. He stared at her for a long minute, and she arranged her face into a semblance of an apology. He swallowed and put an elbow on the table so he could rest his head on his hand, half covering his mouth. 

She didn’t know what to say, how to make him understand that this was to protect him. She couldn’t just lay it all out there, couldn’t just tell him the whole pathetic sob story- fat girl gets picked on, hates herself, self-injures. She’d had a minor panic attack from the mere mention of the incident with Big G, and though he’d been okay with that, how much worse would it be with the whole thing? No, she couldn’t tell him the whole truth. But maybe she could tell him a little? Maybe she could be brave enough to share a little of it with him, just to get that hurt look off his face. He knew those girls were laughing at them, and he still seemed to want to touch her. Maybe it would be okay to tell him this. Let him in a little. 

Finn sat in injured silence while she debated. He opened his mouth to say something, but furrowed his brow and closed it again. Rae grimaced at his expression, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath as she decided to just give in and tell him.

“It’s just… well, I’m kind of a magnet for shitty people. I mean, look at me. They just can’t help but say things about me. Not nice things. And it’s just… well, if you’re with me… if people see us together, like together together, they’re gonna talk about you too. They’ll take the piss out of you for being with me. And, if we just keep it quiet at college, we can still go out and stuff, but no one will know. No one will say anything. And that would be better, right?” Rae kept her eyes fixed on the tabletop as she spoke, but she could feel the intensity of Finn’s stare. 

“No.” He said firmly, and she glanced up at him in frustration. His normally warm brown eyes were flinty and cold as he fixed her with his gaze. His jaw was tight, his chin jutting out. He looked angry and fierce… and sexier than anyone had a right to look. Rae swallowed and looked away. 

“No.” He repeated, touching her cheek to get her to look at him. “You listen to me, Rae Earl. No one gets to tell me who I can and can’t fancy, alright? That is mine. That belongs to me. No one else. Not even you.” 

“But…” Rae interjected, wanting so badly to make him understand.

“No. You’re my girl. I don’t give a flying fuck what anyone else has to say about it. You’re mine, you hear? Everybody else can piss off.” He laid his hand over hers on the table and stared directly into her eyes. His cheeks were red, his eyes challenging and his lips pressed together tightly. 

Rae could feel the tears threatening to spill over, and she tilted her head towards the ceiling and blinked to try and keep them at bay. She made a little sound at the back of her throat that was part whimper and part groan. Of course. Trust Finn to always be so bloody wonderful, to not give a shit what anyone said no matter how much it was gonna suck. Of course he wasn’t going to go for the easy route. She huffed a sigh and met his gaze again. He had softened a little, affected by her stupidly teary eyes, but his expression was still firm. 

“Finn, you don’t understand.” Rae pleaded, and he pursed his lips and shook his head before looking away. “You just said how you hated people talking about you. It’s going to get so much worse…”

“That’s not what I meant!” His outburst was loud in the quiet café, and a few people gave them sidelong glances. He lowered his voice and tried again. “That’s not what I meant. Not at all.”

He leaned in closer to her, picked up her hands to pull her nearer. He looked down at her smaller fingers held in his larger ones, rubbing his calloused thumbs over the back of her hands. He took a deep breath, and when he looked up again, his eyes burned with an emotion she couldn’t place and a force that she hadn’t expected. Her breath caught in her throat, and a tear slid unbidden down her cheek. He reached to wipe it away, then returned to holding her hands in his.

“I don’t want to hide that you’re me girl, Rae. It’s the opposite, actually. I want to tell everyone. And if people talk, then they’ll be talkin’ about somethin’ I’m proud of for once.” He shrugged a little, and his eyebrows drew down to meet in the center of his forehead. Something in Rae’s chest constricted and began to ache painfully.  
She let out a soft breath of choked laughter, and dropped her head down with a shake. How was he even possible? How was possible that he was hers? He scooted closer until he was barely on his seat, reaching forward to push back the curtain of hair obscuring her face and cupping his palm against her cheek.

“You don’t understand. I…” He swallowed heavily and she allowed herself to watch the emotions play across his face, watched as they settled on sad and tender. “I’m… You’re the best thing to happen to me, and I wan’ everybody to know. There’s no point in even goin’ if I have to pretend you’re not mine.”

She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to kiss him senseless. He was so relentlessly sweet, and so completely impossible. But his eyebrows were raised, and his lips started to curl up into his Rae smile, and she could feel herself starting to give in. She sighed and turned to kiss his palm.

“They’ll call you names.” She said sadly. They weren’t going to pretend, so she at least had to prepare him.

“I don’t care.”

“The lads will take the piss, and the girls… the girls will say shit about me to try and win you away.”

“I don’t care.” He shook his head stubbornly, and his smile crept a little further up his face as he sensed his victory. “And nobody will be able to win me away from you.”

“Finn…” She pleaded. He was so flippant about it. He had no idea how bad it could be. She wanted to make him see how utterly possible it was that he would be won away, how likely it was that the words would get to him. It could all fall apart so easily, and she had so little within her that would be able to hold on to him. He furrowed his brow and tilted his head to meet her eyes, pulling her face closer to his, close enough that she felt his words as he spoke.

“Don’t you know how I feel about you, girl?” Her heart started to pound, and breathing suddenly became more difficult. When he was close like this, it almost hurt to look at him. And this was worse, because not only was he close, he was also saying things that she longed to hear.

She was abruptly very aware of the flush of her cheeks, the wideness of her eyes, and the rapidity with which her breath was coming. She was bizarrely conscious of everything just then, as if time itself froze so she could memorize this moment. She could taste the sweetness of his tea in the breath that ghosted over her lips. Every fleck and hue of his gentle expressive eyes was distinct and clear, so much that she swore she could draw a map of them straight into the depths of him. His rough, strong hand was both firm and gentle as it rubbed against the sensitive skin of her cheek. He was so close that the aroma of him surrounded her, defined her- the crisp freshness of soap, CKone and laundry detergent mixed with the musk that was just him. The rest of the world faded away until all she could hear was the pounding of her heart against her ribs and the gentle whoosh of their breaths mingling in the air between them. The moment lengthened and thinned, as precious and fragile as a soap bubble in the sunlight.

He was going to say it. 

He was going to say it, and there’d be no going back from there. Once he said it, she’d be lost. Totally and completely at his mercy, his in a way that she’d never recover from. Rae was caught, suspended in a web of abject terror twined with a hope so powerful that it was agony. She could press her lips to his, stop the words from escaping, stop the terrible momentum of their growing feelings from gaining tangibility. She could prevent him from saying it, keep herself safe, prevent it from becoming real. She could. But, Rae discovered, she didn’t want to. The hope was winning out over the fear. She wanted those words. Wanted to hear them, pluck them out of the air, write them with indelible ink into her very marrow. It would be worth losing herself to him to hear him say it.

So she waited. She closed her eyes, moved in infinitesimally closer, nuzzled his hand just a bit and waited.

“I…” Her eyes sprang open as his voice sounded into the suspended air. His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly against her cheek, and his other hand settled on her thigh. His eyes were gleaming, tender and sweet. His lips softened and ticked up. “Rae, I…”

“Awwww!” Izzy’s voice broke into the tension between them, and Rae turned her head towards her friend dazedly. Finn dropped his hand and leaned back in his seat, clearing his throat. Rae vaguely registered Izzy’s wide grin before she was engulfed in a hug and a cloud of red hair. “You guys are so cute!”

Izzy touched Finn’s shoulder in greeting and slid into his vacated chair on the other side of the table. Rae glanced at Finn, her lips pursed in a bit of a pout. His neck was flushed, but he smiled ruefully at her and shrugged. Rae swallowed back her disappointment, sighed, and forced herself to give a weak smile to Izzy. Stupid cheerful punctual Izzy.

“Hiya Izzy.” Rae shifted in her chair to face her friend, and took a sip of her now cold tea. Finn leaned forward to rest an elbow on the table and an arm against the back of Rae’s chair. 

“Alright, Iz?” He swiped a piece of Rae’s toast and took a bite before grinning roguishly.

“Yeah! I’m right excited about startin’ college. Though I’m a bit nervous, too. Do you think I look alright?” Izzy stood briefly to gesture at her outfit.

“You look smashing, as always.” Rae couldn’t help but smile at Izzy’s endearing manner, her momentary anger all but gone. 

“Lovely.” Finn grinned affectionately at the redhead, and Rae had a sudden longing to trace the lines of his smile. 

“Oh look, there’s Chloe and Archie. “ Izzy pointed out the window behind them, and they both twisted to see the pair waving at them from the sidewalk. “Shall we go out?”

“Yeah, Iz, we’ll be right out. We’re just gonna…” Finn gestured to the plates on the table, and Izzy nodded before prancing out of the café. Rae leaned forward to stack her dishes on the tray, but Finn caught her arm and tugged her closer.

“To be continued, yeah?” He asked, eyes sparkling. Rae nodded, and he leaned in to give her a soft kiss, tender and full of promise. Rae felt a familiar ache surge against her ribs, and she thought briefly that he was going to kill her with longing and hope. That is, if college didn’t kill her first.

She smiled when he moved away, and Finn returned the smile as he tucked her hair back behind her ear. He stood and stacked the dishes, then picked up the tray and took it to the counter. Rae heaved herself out of her seat with a sigh, slung her backpack over a shoulder, and grabbed Finn’s bag as he headed back. She held it out to him as he approached, and he beamed as he lifted the strap over his head, then twined his fingers with hers and gave her hand a squeeze.

They left the café together, as a unit, and Rae wasn’t sure if their solidarity was a good thing or a bad thing. She wasn’t used to having so many people throwing their lots in with hers, but as she gave Chloe a one armed hug and watched as Archie pulled Finn in with an elbow around the neck, she thought it might just make college a little bit fun after all. She had Finn, and she had the gang. What else could anybody need?


	2. Chapter 2

The weather was stupidly lovely for a day whose prospects were so shitty. The sun was bright and the sky a perfect cerulean blue. Rae was sweating underneath her leather jacket, and she scowled down at her shoes as she walked. They were walking so fast, why’d they have to walk so fast? They’d only get there sooner, start the horror of school that much faster. She wished she could slow the whole procession down, but she was sandwiched right in the middle of the parade of her mates, and she could do nothing but let the momentum take her ever closer to college, ever closer to misery.

It’ll be different this time. She let it echo around inside of her, tried to force it to sink in to that deep black part of her that just wouldn’t stop supplying her with awful images from the year before. She’s got Finn, she’s got the gang. It’ll be different this time. It won’t be like last time, it’ll be different. She kept repeating it like a mantra, like a prayer. Please, God, let it be different this time.

“Do I look alright? Cause I want to make a good impression?” Chloe’s question broke through Rae’s bleak musings, and she felt a flash of relief. It is different. She does have the gang. This time last year, she’d been horribly alone.

“For who, it’s only college?” Finn’s voice was gruffer than usual, and Rae wondered if he’s softer around her than she’s realized, if he’s got a voice just for her too. She turned to glance at him, and spent the next few steps admiring his profile and the way the fabric of his shirt laid against his collarbone. Finn caught her staring, of course, but greeted her blushing face with a crooked smile.

“Yeah, well it’s all right for you, Finn. You’re a boy, and you’re in second year. Everyone’ll be starin’ at us.” Chloe kept on, and Rae thought briefly that her best mate must have some kind of talent for saying the absolute worst thing.

“They’re not going to be starin’.” Rae sounded defeated to her own ears, and she returned her eyes to the toes of her shoes. There was a big scuff on the toe of the right one, and she focused on that as she moved her feet. 

Rae felt a tug on her hand, and she glanced up to see Finn giving her his half-smile, half-frown. God, he was adorable. Rae allowed herself a quick smile at him, and he tugged her arm again, using her momentum to pull her closer and sling an arm across her shoulders. She pursed her lips against the grin that was threatening, but couldn’t do anything about her blush as he leaned in to press a kiss against her cheek near her ear. It was so different this time.

“Nobody’ll be starin’.” He whispered into her ear. “And if they do, who cares, right?” 

Finn pulled back to look into her eyes, his stare an encouragement and a challenge. She could do this, because she had him. It was them now, not just Rae. She glanced briefly at his eyebrows, furrowed together in the center of his forehead, and the crease in his cheek from his close-mouthed smile. She twisted half her mouth into a partial smile and nodded. He kept her gaze for an extra second before kissing her cheek again and turning to face forward once more.

“Oh, they so are. We’re fresh meat, babe. It’s like they’re all sittin’ at a restaurant, waitin’ for the delivery, and we’re the food.” Chloe continued after a moment, glancing around at all the people around them.

Rae imagined all the heads nearby were turning in their direction, but when she shook her head and looked again; everyone was busy doing their own thing. Well, except for a group of boys nearby who were obviously checking them out. Chloe preened in her purple dress, shook back her hair and adjusted the sunnies on her head. Rae shook her head at her friend in confusion. Chloe obviously had a different opinion on being eaten alive by their peers. But then, Rae now had some experience with what it’s like to be wanted, what it was like to have Finn… eat her up. Maybe she could understand Chloe’s perspective a little. She flushed at the memory and grinned down at her toes, biting her lip and trying not to sneak another glance at her scrumptious boyfriend. Everything was different. It was all going to be different.

“Oi! You two are taken, remember that.” Chop interjected, playfully pulling Izzy closer with the arm around her slender shoulders. Izzy laughed and Rae felt an unfamiliar happiness bubbling up within her. Finn murmured an assent, and Rae lifted her hand to twine her fingers with his where they rested over her shoulder. He grinned at her, and leaned closer to speak in her ear again.

“You are taken, girl, and don’t you forget it. You’re mine, remember?” Finn’s voice was deep and a little bit husky, and Rae leaned her cheek into his warm breath.

“You too, Finnley. Don’t forget you’re taken too.” Rae scrunched her nose at him and he pressed a finger against the tip.

“No chance, beautiful girl. Don’ worry about that.” 

“You either, Chop.” Izzy’s voice broke through the bubble of the little moment Rae’d been having with Finn, and she was startled with the realization that it wasn’t just the two of them. She had to stop getting lost in him when they were around everyone else. “You’d better not find some hussy at the shop and fall in love with her.”

Izzy affected a stern face and shook her finger right under Chop’s nose. He gave her his widest gap-toothed grin before suddenly lurching forward to bite it. Izzy shrieked and Rae laughed at their antics. Chop pulled Izzy in for a hug and a sloppy kiss that made her squeal. 

“Never mind!” She wailed against his chest. “You’re free to fall in love with whatever hussies you want!”

“Nah. You’re stuck with me, baby girl.” Chop grinned, and bent to give Izzy a proper kiss, which went from chaste to heated rather quickly. 

“Alright!” Chloe yelled. “I get it! You guys are all happy and adorable! Do you have to do that here?” 

Chloe shook her head at the couple, then turned incredulous eyes to Rae and Finn. Rae grinned at her best mate. It was so wonderful to see two people who were really in love, and while she could go without seeing Chop squeezing Izzy’s bum   
like that, it was nice to see them all mad about each other. Finn tightened his arm around her shoulder and she turned her head to smile at him. He had that goofy soft grin on his face, and his freckles were prominent in the morning sunlight and his eyes twinkled just a bit. She could look at him all day.

“Ugh. Not you too. I’ll see you later.” Chloe huffed and stalked off towards the door, but Rae hardly noticed because Finn’s smile had turned a little bit darker and he was looking at her lips. She licked her lips involuntarily and Finn seemed to take this as an invitation; he leaned in closer, time seemed to slow, and her breaths came slightly erratically. Her eyelids had just fluttered closed when a hand cuffed her shoulder.

“Right, I’m off. I’ll see you lovebirds later, yeah?” Chop waggled his brows at them, and Rae took a step back, out of Finn’s arms, and wished him a good day.

“Later, mate.” Finn smiled after Chop as he wandered off, and offered his hand to Rae. She reached to twine her fingers with his and raised her eyes to the tall building in front of them. They stood side by side, joined by their hands, as Rae stared at the college for a long moment. When she turned, Finn was watching her, and he shrugged a shoulder towards the door in question. She took a deep breath, and they walked forward together. She could do this. It wouldn’t be like last time. Everything was different. 

She’d walked up to the school surrounded by friends. She was holding the hand of her very delicious boyfriend, who’d basically just snogged her in front of everyone. He had taken her to breakfast and almost told her he loved her and he didn’t care at all about who saw them or what people might say. But people would say things. She could practically feel the weight of their stares like a blanket over her head. Or a coat.

And just like that, the crystalline happiness she’d had only moments before shattered, rained down inside her head and ripped jagged fissures into her. She only vaguely recognized that they were pushing through the huge double doors into the building, she was so focused on the recollections that were flickering through her head like some horrible disjointed film. 

The hot water from the shower. The laughing girls running by. Reaching for her towel and finding only the cold smoothness of the brick wall. Scared at her locker, waiting for someone to say or do something. The laughter as someone tossed her jacket over her head, the pain in her shoulder as she was shoved into the locker.

The faces around Rae had taken on grotesque features in her head. All she could see was the staring, the disgusted expressions, the incredulous whispers. All she could hear was maniacal laughter, and she couldn’t tell if it was a memory or someone laughing in the here and now. She closed her eyes, trying to center herself, trying to get the laughter to stop, but more images flickered in her head with increasing speed.

Bowling with Finn, the boys at the next lane shooting each other mocking looks as Finn touched her hand. Helping Finn up the stairs after he’d hurt himself at football, the boys on the step down snickering and whispering as they laughed at her. The kids in the canteen laughing hysterically as someone knocked her tray of food from her hands.

The scenes became shorter, faster, rapidly changing without any rhyme or reason. They were just snippets now, but all the more horrible for it. She felt each humiliation, each awful moment of self-loathing and hatred and sadness as if it were the first time. The memories were washed out and gray as they flickered through her skull, but they felt just as real as Finn’s hand in hers. She felt him tighten his grip on her, felt him steering her through the hallways, but she was lost in the panic and had little sense of anything going on around her besides the laughter.

The girls calling her names, getting everyone to laugh at her as she just sat there unable to move. Recollections from her session with Kester, everything ending in an association with the word ‘fat.’ More laugher, endless laughter. The metallic clink of the razor as it fell into the sink. Tixy’s pale sad, lovely face. More laughter.Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat.

She was overtaken by the anxiety now, her breathing was shallow and rapid and she felt tears fill her eyes. Through the haze of fear, she looked over at Finn and noted vaguely his concerned eyes scanning her face , but his hand felt solid and firm in hers and it made her feel a little better somehow, as if his hand were anchoring her through the haze to the here and now. He was gripping her tightly, and he pulled her through the corridors while barely looking at anything but her. She focused on his hand, tried to regulate her breathing, but all she could hear was the laughter. 

A horrible cackling started to sound within her, over the caucus of mocking jeers ringing in her ears. Her eyes were full of tears, blurry, and she could barely make out what was happening, just a sea of faces shooting disgusted looks at her, somehow bigger and misshapen. Her skin felt raw and red and electric, as if she could short circuit the wiring of the school with her agitation. The buzzing blackness started to press in on her, and she knew she was in serious danger of passing out.

“Finn…” She breathed heavily, and he turned his panicked eyes to her. “I… I have to… get out of here. Need something… flat… please…”

Finn’s hand in hers tightened even further until it was painful, but the pain made the darkness swirling around her release just a little and she relished it. 

“Okay, Rae. Hang on, alright?” He looked freaked out, but Rae didn’t have any more room in her brain to process the fear that she was showing him just how fucked up she was. The pressure of the swirling darkness increased, and she was just   
barely hanging on when Finn pushed through a metal door and they were outside. 

The cooler air was a relief, and she felt some of the pressure abate. Finn turned a corner and led her towards a brick wall. She placed her hands against the rough surface and counted. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9…

By the time she reached ten the second time, her breath was back under control and the cloud of anxiety had dissipated enough that she became conscious of her surroundings. They were behind the college, in an alcove of some sort. Finn had a hand on her back, his head ducked and pressed into her shoulder as he stood at her side. Her fingers hurt from contact with the wall, or maybe the pressure of his hand. She choked out a sob, and turned sharply to face Finn, who pulled her tightly into his arms as soon as he realized that she had moved. She gripped his shirt and buried her face in his neck, sobbing. His arms were steady and strong around her, and Rae had the peculiar sensation that he was holding her together, that his arms were all that kept the broken pieces of her from completely disintegrating.

That’s when the alarm went off.

It was loud and shrill and echoed strangely in the little cubby they were in, and they both jumped at the sudden sound. Finn tugged at her to move without releasing her from his grip, and they half-ran around the side of the building to a little garden that belonged to the school. Finn steered her into a pocket of shade behind a large tree and pulled her back into his strong embrace. He held her so tightly that Rae wondered manically if he hoped to squeeze the crazy right out of her.   
But he felt so good, and if it hurt a little bit, it only served to ground her further and push the last edges of the panic out of her skull.

The students poured out of the school in a great flood, milling around and talking in excited voices. Finn took a few steps to pull her further back away from the crowd, deeper into the foliage of the garden, so they wouldn’t be seen. Rae felt so grateful to him for that little gesture, so relieved and thankful that he seemed to understand how raw she felt and how miserable it would be to be around everyone else. She spent a long moment marveling that it wasn’t painful to be around him just then. He’d been present, touching her, thorough an entire panic attack, and she didn’t hate it. Her walls were all down just then, and he’d been there behind her defenses .

Before she could process her incredulity, she was awash in horror at the thought that she’d truly blown it all by showing him just how nutty she really was. He’d been behind her defenses, able to see everything that was going on with her, just how truly fucked up she was. Somehow though, the press of his arms around her and the smell of his t-shirt beneath her cheek numbed her emotions. She buried her face further into his chest, let the tears flow unabated as she reveled in the emotional limbo. She knew there were scads of feelings within her, waiting to be felt, analyzed, loathed. But here in Finn’s arms, it was all pleasantly muzzy and buried.

Finn was silent as he squeezed her tightly, his cheek pressed against her hair. Rae wondered what he was thinking, if he was ready to call it quits yet, if he was pitying his mad, fat girlfriend. She shoved those miserable thoughts back and tried to let herself just rest in the moment. She wanted to borrow some of his strength, let him hold her up for just a minute- she was so tired of supporting the weight of all of her emotions. It was exhausting being so messed up, and the thought of staying right here in his arms forever was its own kind of heaven.

Eventually her tears slowed, and Finn loosened his grip on her to look at her puffy tear-stained face. He cupped her cheeks in his palms with extraordinary gentleness, like she was made of glass and he might break her with a wrong word or touch. But, she supposed he couldn’t be blamed for thinking that, she had just broken without any prodding at all. How could he know what might set her off? How could she? But his warm brown eyes were full of concern and affection as he scanned her face. Was he looking for cracks? Rae thought it might be better if she actually did wear evidence of her illness, if she was broken on the outside to reflect the mess inside. But no, that was too close to a cutting thought, and she   
didn’t do that anymore.

After a moment of looking her over carefully, Finn seemed to be satisfied at what he found. She wondered if she seemed different to him, if he was searching for the ways the old Rae was still there. His furrowed brow loosened a bit, and his eyebrows climbed up his forehead in question.

“Better now?” He asked gently, his thumb brushing the skin above her lip. Rae nodded, and he tilted his head as he considered his next words. “What happened?”

Rae sighed and turned her head until he released her face. He wrapped his arms back around her, and she glanced down at their torsos pressed together.

“I dunno. I jus’… sometimes I have these… they’re called panic attacks.” She looked up then, not sure what expression she was hoping to find on his face. He looked serious and uncertain, and she briefly recalled the look on his face at her mum’s wedding when she revealed her big secret. “I told you I was mad, Finn. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t…”

Rae’s words got caught in her throat, her chest tightening from the agony of holding them in. She knew she had to say it, knew it’d be easier if she gave him the out and he took it, rather than pretending it was okay and then breaking up later. But she just couldn’t say it, she wanted to keep him so desperately. She sputtered, eyes wide and mouth agog. 

“Shhh….” Finn murmured, and used a hand to press her head back into his shoulder. “It’s okay, Rae. I’m not going anywhere. Shhhhh.”

Somehow, it was enough. Despite all the times when her feelings swelled within her like the sea during a hurricane until the little boat of her sanity was capsized and sunk, despite the overflow of words that sometimes poured from her in a torrent just trying to get it all out, despite all the instances when she scrambled for a release, any release- somehow those quiet words were enough. His low voice and his warm arms somehow soothed her in a way nothing ever had, and a she felt an intangible something within her release, like a bird suddenly loosed from its cage spiraling gracefully towards the sky.

So she let him hold her in silence. They stood together and watched the teenagers laugh and flirt and otherwise enjoy the unexpected reprieve from class. A stern voice came over the intercom and threatened grave punishments to the persons responsible for sounding the alarm, but Rae and Finn were just far enough away from the commotion to make it all seem surreal. Finn barked a laugh suddenly, and Rae took a step back to look at him in affronted surprise. He thought this was funny?

“No, no.” He was quick to explain when he saw her face, but he can’t keep back the smile brimming across his face like sunlight. “It’s just, we broke the school Rae. We’re just too cool for the school to handle.”  
Rae shook her head at him, rolled her eyes, and it felt normal again. Finn had a way of doing that, putting everything back on an even keel. She thought about all the broken shards of her and the way his arms seemed to press them back together, about how his hand had pulled her through the darkness towards relief. She got teary again thinking about how wonderful he was, how much she loves this gorgeous boy, but she covered it with a little laugh. 

“Look, Rae.” Finn gestured widely towards the school spread out before them in the courtyard, stepping up behind her and putting a hand on her upper arm. She had no idea what exactly he wanted her to see, but his breath blew strands of her hair as he continued, and she found herself perfectly happy to listen to whatever he had to say. “Look. Everyone is nervous, see?”

He pointed with one hand to a pair of girls who were shooting uncomfortable glances at a group nearby, frantically adjusting each other’s hair. Behind them were a group of boys who were clearly posturing, talking too loud in an attempt to draw attention. Archie was over towards the opposite side of the building, and he was fiddling with his glasses in a way that Rae knew meant he was nervous. 

“Everyone feels weird about college. But there’s no one to impress here, anyway. They’re all a bunch o’ idiots. And everybody here is too caught up in their own stuff to care much about who anybody else is goin’ out with, at least for today. So, you don’ hafta worry. Nobody’ll be talkin’ about you. And, we helpfully set off the fire alarm, just to make sure.”

She could hear the smile in his voice, and she twisted around so she could see it. He had one eye squinched up and his grin was wide and crooked and she kissed him without thinking. It was brief and sweet, and she tried to make it as much of a thank you as she could in the short time her lips were against his. His mouth moved slowly against hers, and time seemed to thin and still again like it so often did when they were together. When he pulled back, he rubbed his thumb over her cheek slowly and grinned at her like an idiot. 

“What?” Rae asked, curious as always as to what was going on in his beautiful head.

“Nothin.” He replied, laughing as she scowled at him. “It’s just… you let me help. I half expected ya to run off and keep it all from me, and I’m relieved that I got to hold ya when you was upset. It woulda driven me crazy to think about you off somewhere freakin’ out by yourself.”

Rae cocked her head as she considered his words. She’d never stopped to think that he might be watching her, trying to figure out what was going on with her. All this time, she’d been so busy wondering what he thought of her, what he meant, the causes behind his inscrutable actions- she’d never even entertained the thought that he might be doing the same thing. While she’d been trying to understand him, trying to break through his walls, he’d been trying to get beyond her exterior too. She thought about the night of the sexy party, when he’d cried on her shoulder and she’d felt so connected to him because he’d finally let her in a little. All this time, she’d been trying to keep him away from the craziness inside of her, and he’d been trying to break his way in. She abruptly felt completely ashamed of herself. He just wanted to know her, and she was always working out ways to prevent exactly that. 

Things had changed so much already that she’d shared this awful part of her without even really thinking about it. But she knew that if she’d felt this way even last week, she’d have taken off by herself so he wouldn’t know about her anxiety. But something had shifted within her, and now she… she trusted Finn. She trusted him to still care about her no matter how mad she was. He might not want her as his girlfriend, he might get fed up with all of it at some point or another, they might not always be together like they were now- but she knew deep down that he would be there for her no matter what, that when he said he wasn’t going anywhere, he meant it. She trusted him to not injure her where she was most vulnerable, he’d proven himself worthy to bear her secrets and her lunacy. 

Rae felt herself giving over to choked sobbing once again, but this time it was in joy and relief. She trusted Finn. He could be her confidant, her strength when she didn’t have any of her own, and she’d needed that so desperately. He wasn’t going anywhere. It was a miracle, a wonder, a precious revelation in a day so fraught with angst. What had she done to deserve this special boy? 

“Hey, hey…” Finn murmered, his eyebrows raising in an alarmed frown as he took in her sudden descent into renewed crying. He tightened his arms around her again and she nuzzled her wet face against his neck. “I didn’t mean nothing by that, Rae. I… I didn’t mean to make you cry. Don’t cry, girl!”

Rae laughed through her tears as she pressed her hot face against his cool skin, though she was sure it sounded more like sobs. Finn shook his head helplessly and smoothed his hand over her hair.  
“I’m sorry, Rae… I didn’t…”

“No, no.” Rae raised her head and attempted a watery smile, shook her head at him and moved a hand to rest on his chest. Finn didn’t loosen his tight grip on her, nor his pinched expression. “I’m happy.”

“You what?” He asked, and she laughed at his dazed face. He looked completely lost, and his eyebrows were so high that she thought they might just fly up off his forehead and wing off towards the coast. She’d miss them so much. She reached up to smooth them down, then trailed her fingers across his skin and softly tapped the fullness of his bottom lip where it pursed into a frown. As she touched him, his features softened, though his eyes remained dark with confusion.

“It’s just… You’re not going anywhere.” She smiled, biting her lip. 

“You’re cryin’ cause I’m not goin’ anywhere?” Finn asked in a throaty sort of voice, his brow pinching with his failure to understand. Rae wanted to kiss him again, suck the pout off his lips and make him understand through her touch that she finally got it, she finally believed him. But she’d already initiated a kiss just a minute before, and she was still a little unsteady about her right to give him her affection, so she just smiled at him and grazed his cheek with her thumb.

“I trust you.” She shrugged at him, trying and failing to convey the relief she felt at this new realization. He let out a laugh that was almost a sigh and his lips curled up at the corners. “I didn’t really get it before, Finnley, but I trust you. You’re not going anywhere.”

“No, I’m not goin’ anywhere, girl. I’m yours.” Finn said quietly, leaning forward to nuzzle his nose against hers. His voice was so soft, so breathy, and Rae knew it was just for her. How many things did he reserve just for her? She smiled as she rubbed her nose against his. It was such a silly sentimental thing to do, and she loved him all the more for it. 

She pulled back and looked into his warm brown eyes, tried to convey with her gaze how grateful she was for him, how much she loved him. His cheeks started to pink up, but he allowed her to look at him unabashedly for several long seconds, the world around them once again having faded away to nothing. Something within her swelled up, began to expand and fill her up with wonder and awe and love, and before she knew what was happening, she’d opened her mouth to let it out.

“Finn, I… I lo…”

“There you two are! I’ve been looking for you all over the place!” Archie’s voice sounded from behind her and Rae closed her eyes and let her face sag where it was sandwiched between Finn’s palms. He held her head up despite the extra weight, of course. “Can you believe this fire alarm? Who do ya think set it off? Ya think they did it on purpose to get us out of college on the first day? Genius, really.”

“Archie, mate.” She looked up at the sound of Finn’s aggravated voice, watched the anger simmer in his eyes as he glared at his best mate. “I love ya, but you really need to piss off right now. Can’t ya see we’re having a moment?”

“Yeah well…” Archie mumbled, disgruntled, and she could feel him rolling his eyes just from his tone. “You two are always having moments. Excuse me for interrupting.”

Rae’s mouth was pinching up from the pressure of Finn’s frustrated fingers, and she watched him as he glared after Archie’s retreating figure. She felt bad that she’d caused him to snap at their friend, but she was sure her face was still puffy and streaked from the crying and she was glad that she hadn’t needed to turn around. But holy Lord, did their friends have terrible timing. She’d been about to say it. 

Rae’s head began to swim and she felt a little woozy. She’d been about to say it. Good God, she’d been about to tell Finn she loved him. The words had been on the tip of her tongue, literally coming out of her mouth. If Archie hadn’t interrupted, she would have told him. She would have said it. She would have said it first. Oh God. 

What the fuck kind of day was this? Two panic attacks, all kinds of confessions and revelations and two near I-love-yous. She felt exhausted and it wasn’t even ten a.m.

Finn sighed heavily when he returned his gaze to hers and found her wide-eyed and shocked at the near miss. He took in her expression and sighed again, his lips forming just the tiniest hint of a pout and making her smile. 

“You were saying?” He asked hopefully, and his face fell when Rae shook her head. She leaned in to kiss him in recompense. He couldn’t have the words just then, but he could have a kiss. She gave him a gentle peck, but he wound his fingers in her hair and pulled her against him in a way that made her flush all over. She didn’t even part her lips, but he made her feel that kiss in every inch of her being, feel his frustration and longing. It was a kiss that made her reconsider his offer of skiving off school and going round to his, but it ended as abruptly as it began. He pulled away and grinned boyishly at her breathless gasp.

Another bell sounded in the courtyard and Finn tossed his head back and laughed at the sky. The students began to wind their way back into the building, still laughing and jostling for attention.

“What is this fuckin’ day, eh? Our mates have the shittiest timing.” He stepped away from her for what felt like the first time in hours, and Rae felt herself missing him already. She chuckled softly, his thoughts echoed hers so closely. Maybe the next time she wondered what he was thinking, she should just suppose he was thinking the same thing as her. She swiped at her puffy face and adjusted the hem of her skirt. 

“Do I look alright, Finn?” She asked meekly, tucking her fingers into the straps of her backpack. Finn turned to smile at her before he answered.

“You look beautiful, girl.” He tilted his head and gave her a once over in a lurid way that made her blush.

“No, you daft twat. Do I look like I’ve been back here bawlin’ my eyes out?” Rae shook her head at him, rolled her eyes again, and he laughed.

“Nah.” He said, inspecting her face more carefully. “Your eyes are a little red, but it’s not too bad. You do look beautiful, though, y’know.”

“Thanks.” Rae looked down at her toes once more. She knew it wasn’t true, but it was nice to hear just the same. And maybe, just maybe, he really thought that. She wasn’t beautiful, but maybe Finn thought she was. And that was good enough for anybody. Rae looked back up at the school and sighed. “I guess we should go in, then?”

Finn shrugged as he looked over the now nearly empty entrance to the college, then reached out to take her hand. They walked back in hand in hand again, but this time they didn’t pause before the big double doors, and Rae didn’t feel the eddies of panic swirl around her. She kept her eyes trained on Finn’s face, and was pleased to see the little proud smile that graced his cheeks. He steered her through the mostly barren corridors and paused outside a blue painted door with a glass panel that made her think of the hospital.

“Maths first, right?”Finn asked, glancing around the hallway before meeting her gaze. Rae nodded and dropped his hand, ready to turn and enter the classroom. “Listen Rae…”

Rae raised her eyebrows in question as she turned back to him. She felt a brief flash of fear, wondering if this was when he was going to chuck her, before it was chased away by her newfound trust in him. She was shocked by the speed with which her insecurity was displaced by her love, and she had to reign herself in from showing her astonishment all over her face. Finn moved in closer and spoke rapidly.

“Look, I know today is gonna suck. I mean, we don’t have any classes together and it’s been pretty fuckin’ weird already. But we’ll get through it okay, right?” He didn’t pause for her answer, but kept railing through. “But you know, footy hasn’t really started yet, and my da doesn’t get home ‘til late most nights, and maybe you’d like to come round mine after school? As, like, a reward for makin’ it through the day or summat. We can listen to some more crap reggae. Fancy it?”

He waggled his eyebrows in an exaggerated leer with the last sentences, and joy bloomed through her chest. There’s nothing she’d like better than to go home with him and continue these conversations they’ve been half having all morning.   
And then snog him senseless. That’s important, too. But yes, she wants it all to be continued.

“Yeah.” Rae can feel the grin spreading across her face, but she’s too happy to even try and contain it. How’d that happen? Not even half an hour ago she’d been panicked out of her mind, on the verge of blacking out, and now she was laughing and flirting with Finn in the corridor.

“Yeah?” His answering smile is wide and open, and she thinks she wants to make him smile like that every day for forever. 

“Yeah.” She laughed and noded enthusiastically. “God yeah.”

Finn leaned in like he was going to kiss her, but then he glanced around the corridor and stepped back. But she’s happy and she knows he’s only holding back for her and the hallway is mostly empty anyway, so she moved forward and pressed a soft kiss against his cheek. He gave her a surprised smile, then took off jogging down the hall towards his own class. She watched him, tilting her head to admire the view of his backside, and after a moment, he flipped around until he was running backwards and gave her a goofy wave that made her laugh.

As Rae entered the classroom, still wild with the commotion from the fire alarm, she was thinking of Finn and the reggae they’d listen to this afternoon. She’s definitely going to have to pop home and change her underwear. She giggled to herself as she took her seat, thinking that she’s going to have to invest in more lingerie. 

Yeah, things are different this time. Still kind of totally the same, but also completely different.


	3. Chapter 3

When he swings the door open, he finds Rae wearing a particularly lascivious smile, and he knows with absolutely certainty that it’s going to be an incredible afternoon. He moves back to let her through the door, but she moves unnecessarily close to him as she walks through anyway, then runs a hand down across his chest. He grins and pushes the door shut with one hand, then wraps an arm around her waist to pull her in the rest of the way until her stomach and hips are pressed up against him.

“Finnley…” She says, and it’s sultry and seductive. He licks his lips in anticipation, moves until his lips are hovering just over hers. Rae makes a little whimper and he smiles as he closes the distance. The kiss is heated and delectable, no more hesitation left between them. She presses into him, slides her tongue over his bottom lip and runs her fingers through his hair- an assault on all his senses. After a moment, she pulls his hand from where it’s resting on her waist and places it on her breast. He lets out a low groan, which causes Rae to chuckle throatily. 

Her hand starts to wander, grazing over his arms and shoulders, down his chest and across his stomach. She tugs up his t-shirt until her fingers find the skin of his abdomen, and she groans as she glides her hand over his muscles.

“You’re so sexy, Finn. I want you so much.” Her eyes are huge and heavy lidded when he looks at her, her mouth swollen and pink and oh-so-sexy. She pouts out her bottom lip, then bites it coyly. “I want to do all sorts of dirty things to you.” 

“Yeah?” He asks, reaching between their bodies to unzip her sweatshirt. He tugs slowly, and the soft hiss of the zipper is absurdly loud in the sudden stillness. Every inch reveals more and more bare skin- she’s wearing nothing but a bright red lacy bra underneath the sweatshirt. Her tits seem to glow, the pale skin almost spilling out of the cups. He runs two fingers lazily over the exposed skin, and Rae holds perfectly still with her hands still hiking up his shirt. He licks his lip as he studies the exposed skin and palms her breasts with both hands. He squeezes gently, then again more firmly as she moans. “What did you have in mind?”

“Mmmmm… First I want to run my fingers over every inch of you.” Rae’s hands begin to move again, exploring the line of his waistband. Her mouth is open invitingly as her breaths become shallower, and he leans in to taste the skin of her cleavage. “And then I want to go down on you, feel your big hard cock thrusting in and out of my mouth.” He bites the top of her breast just a little, for her cheek. Her fingers begin to unzip his pants. He pulls back and watches as she runs the tip of her tongue slowly over her top lip. “Won’t you take me up to your room?” 

He steps back, and she looks at him lustily as he rakes his eyes over the bare skin that’s exposed by her open sweatshirt. She touches her face, runs her hand down across her throat, over her breasts and in a sinuous line down her stomach. 

“Do you like what you see, big boy?” She says lowly, then uses both hands to push her sweatshirt even further open until it falls off her shoulders and pools at her elbows. He reaches for her hand and practically drags her upstairs to his room. Rae giggles as they cross the threshold into his room, steps out of his grasp as he tugs the door shut and locks it. He watches her as she moves to the center of the room and drops the sweatshirt to the floor, then slowly unzips her jeans and shoves them down. She bites her lip as she stands before him, a fantasy brought to life in her sexy red lingerie. He crosses the room in two quick strides and pulls her into his arms, kissing her with a feverish intensity. 

Rae moans into the kiss, then pulls back. She raises a hand to caress his cheek, looks deeply into his eyes. “I love you, Finn.”

His breath catches at the words, and his chest fills with a wonderful aching. He pushes her hair behind   
her ear and kisses her softly, sweetly, tenderly. He fills the kiss with all the love and longing he’s felt for her. It doesn’t take long before it becomes heated again, only seconds really. He pulls her closer, hands grasping her bare skin with a hint of roughness. Rae gasps and slides her lips across his cheek and along his jaw, and he reaches for her breasts again. She shifts away and he grunts in frustration, but she looks at him with wide eyes.

“Finn, I want to taste you.” She says slinkily, shooting him a sultry smile. She runs her hands down his sides as she moves to kneel in front of him. He feels like he might spontaneously combust. This must be some kind of dream, she can’t actually be on her knees about to blow him. Rae looks up at him as she slips her fingers underneath the waistband of his boxers and starts to tug.

“Finn. Finn. Finn!” Archie’s voice brakes into his reverie, and Finn starts. He’s doing it again, getting lost in fantasies of her. He’s been doing it for months, letting himself fill idle hours with elaborate daydreams about her. They’ve just gotten more specific, more detailed, since camping, not fewer. He knows he shouldn’t spend all this time in what’s essentially wanking territory, but fuck all if he’s got any idea how to stop. 

“What?” He asks, removing his pen from his mouth and looking at it in surprise. He’s almost completely gnawed it down, it was brand new and now it looks mangled and crushed. 

Finn heaves a sigh and sets it down. He should have snuck back out this morning for a smoke after he’d left Rae at her classroom, but in the worry about her and the madness of the fire alarm, it hadn’t occurred to him. Plus, you know, better to not risk setting off the fire alarm twice in one day. He’d get expelled for sure. And he doesn’t normally smoke much in the morning anyway, but after the morning he’s had, he’s long overdue for a cigarette. It’s hardly a wonder that he’s worried his pen down to a clump. 

“For fuck’s sake, mate, are you even listening?” Finn focuses on Archie’s face, takes in his pursed lips and raised eyebrows. He hasn’t been listening. He hasn’t been listening to a single thing anyone’s said all morning. He’s been lost in thoughts of her, lost in trying not to think some thoughts of her by thinking others too much. 

“Sorry, Arch. I’m just…” He trails off, unsure of exactly what it is that’s made him so introspective today. Well, that’s not exactly true. He knows what’s made him so off kilter, but he doesn’t really know how to explain it to Archie. “Dunno. What were you saying?”

“Class is out, Finn.” Archie shakes his head mockingly, and Finn finally notices that they’re alone in the classroom. Fuck. He shoots suddenly to his feet, knocking his knees painfully against the top of his desk. He’s been using these same desks for years, he knows that he’s got to turn to the side before trying to stand. He’s so out of it today. “Do you want to actually go to lunch, or were you planning on sitting here mooning about Rae all day?”

“I’m not mooning.” Finn shoots Archie an irritated look as he quickly shoves his books and chewed pen into his messenger bag, and Archie guffaws loudly. The smug bastard grabs onto the straps of his backpack and rolls from his heels to his toes, and somehow the little movement is mocking. He’s not mooning, he’s just thinking. Obsessively. About Rae. That’s not the same as mooning. She’s his girlfriend, he’s allowed to think about her without it being mooning. Finn scowls and yanks the strap of his bag over his head, adjusts it on his hip, then gestures widely towards the door. Archie laughs again.

“Suuuure. You’re not mooning at all. Just keep telling yourself that. You’ve only been doing it since July.” Archie tosses the remark over his shoulder as they pass through the crowded corridor and Finn sneers at his back.

Yeah, since Archie’d messed her about and made him break off their date in July. He’s pretty sure that’s when it started. It’s been months and he can still recall with perfect clarity the look on her face when he’d told her Archie wasn’t coming, and even stronger, the jolt of uneasy awareness that had ripped through him. That was when he’d truly seen her for the first time, when he’d become cognizant that it somehow mattered to him if she got hurt. He hates thinking about it, unsure which is the worse thought, Rae getting hurt or Rae dating Archie.

He follows a step behind his mate as they cross two hallways towards the canteen, keeps his head down but he can still feel the eyes on him. He’s such a fucking hypocrite, telling Rae that no one is paying attention to them, when he knows good and well that there is always someone paying attention to him, always some idiotic girl tittering in a corner. He’d been bothered about the way he couldn’t seem to escape attention, and he’d never even once considered that it might be worse for her. 

But no. He’s not going to think about that. There’s no sense in worryin’ about what you can’t change, his Nan had always said. Each day has its own evils and you don’t need to bother with tomorras’. God, he misses her. When her voice pops in his head like this, it’s hard to even breathe around the tightness in his chest. How could it be that the empty space she left behind took up so much room within him?   
He rubs absently at his chest as they push through the doors into the canteen. It would be better if they had lunch together, he thinks. Better for them to have a chance to connect during the day, rather than this long expanse of time where anything could happen and she could decide she was perfectly fine without him. Plus, he always felt better when she was around. Her natural buoyancy and humor always made him less aware of the gaps where parts of him were missing. But the first years have lunch at a different time, and he won’t see her again until this afternoon.

This afternoon. The thought is both a balm and an incendiary. Warmth spreads through him at the thought of a few stolen hours alone together. He looks down as a blush colors his cheeks, remembering his fantasy from earlier. He knows it won’t go like that exactly, he has sense enough to see the places where Chop’s illicit pornography collection have colored his fantasies way beyond the realm of reality, but he does have reason to hope that some of that stuff might happen. She’d been so close to saying she loved him this morning, so close to saying the words that he’s been dying to hear. At least, he thinks so. Hopes so. Maybe he’ll find out for sure this afternoon.

Finn huffs a sigh and Archie shoots him a look as they grab trays and stand in the queue. “You’re not still mad about this morning are ya?” Archie asks, grabbing a slice of pizza and dropping it onto his tray. “I didn’t know I was interrupting something serious. What was going on with you two anyway? I know you’re all lovey-dovey after camping, but it’s getting a bit ridiculous. You haven’t stopped touching her since Friday.” 

“Nah, I’m not mad. It’s just...”Finn struggles to find the right words to explain his discomfiture. “It’s been a weird day.”

“Yeah. I can’t believe someone pulled the fire alarm on the first day back!” Archie laughs, shuffling his tray down the line. Finn pokes a little at the hamburger he’s chosen, questioning the soundness of his decision. “Somebody wanted to rile things up around here.”

Finn raises his eyebrows and blows out a gust of air, glancing around them to see who is close enough to hear. The cashier is looking at them warily, so he waits until after they’ve paid for their food to lean in and admit, “Yeah… that was us.”

“You what?” Archie sputters, then heaves a great laugh. “So that’s what your little outburst this morning was about. Why did you set the fire alarm off?”

“Shhh!” Finn admonishes, swinging his leg over the bench and setting his tray down. “We’ll get in trouble if anyone finds out. It was just an accident really.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“Dunno. We just went outside.” Finn shrugs and takes a bite of his burger, then grimaces and opens his bottle of water. Archie takes a bite and considers him for a minute, then grins roguishly and shakes his head.

“What, you couldn’t be bothered to snog inside then?”

Finn scowls and rolls his eyes. They’re not that bad. Yes, he likes to touch her, but doesn’t everyone like to touch their girlfriend? And, he’s only just now allowed to touch her whenever he wants, so it’s still kind of a new thing and of course he wants to do it a lot. “No, it’s… Rae just got a bit… nervous about college startin’ and all that, so we stepped outside for a minute, and it set the alarm off.”

It feels weird not to tell Archie the whole of it. He’s never really kept anything from Archie until Rae came in to his life, and even then he admitted fancying her as soon as he thought it was reasonable. But this… Rae let him into her confidence, shared with him some of her secrets, let him help her through a rough time. It feels big, feels like a breakthrough. She can be so hard to know sometimes, so hard to decipher and he’s never quite sure that he’s getting her right. But after this morning, he feels like he’s a little closer to the truth of her, to being able to trust that his instincts in regards to her are true. 

“Yeah, I know how she feels.” Archie mumbles towards his pizza, then glances around the busy canteen. Finn pulls back his head and raises his eyebrows. This is news to him, he had no idea that Archie was worried about college starting. Finally Archie glances back at him and shrugs a little, blushing a bit at Finn’s confusion. “Just… I dunno. It’s just… Well, I’m not exactly like all the other blokes, am I?”

“Why, cause you’re such a bloody huge nerd?” Finn teases, and Archie chuckles briefly before looking down at the table again. He’s got the uneasy feeling that he’s hurt Archie with his joke, that Archie is more disheartened than before. He furrows his eyebrows, starts to apologize, but Archie cuts him off.

“It… it can be a bit hard to… fit in, is all.” He says finally with a shrug and a closed lipped smile. Finn nods and grimaces down at his plate. It’s a sentiment he understands well- he’s always stuck out wherever he went, first for being way shorter than the other boys his age, then because he was the kid whose mum legged it, then because he was some kind of heartthrob. He’s never been able to blend in well, to be another face among the crowd. He’s always been notorious Finn Nelson.

“I get that, mate.” He says ruefully, taking another bite of his hamburger. Archie’s eyebrows raise and he leans back, tilting his head in confusion. 

“You, ‘fit Finn Nelson’? You’re popular enough for the both of us, mate.” Finn frowns, shouldn’t his best mate know exactly how he’s never fit in? Archie’s been there through all of it, he should understand better than anyone. Then again, Finn didn’t really know Archie was having trouble either. Maybe it’s more about how you feel than how it seems to others. 

“It’s not like it’s fun Archer, or easy. People are always lookin’ at me. Like all the fuckin’ time.” Finn frowns and rolls his eyes, jerking his head briefly towards the table next to them. A group of girls is shooting glances their way, giggling and smiling coyly at them. Finn groans as Archie turns his head to look at them full on and the tittering increases in volume. You can’t let them know you know, or it just gets worse. Archie smiles at Finn, tilts his head in acknowledgment. “Always talking about me, too. And there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s bollocks.”

“I guess so.” Archie acquiesces, taking a bite of his pizza crust, and Finn chokes down more of his lunch. They eat in silence for a while, and Finn wonders if anyone ever really feels like they fit in. He’s always felt like an outsider, like he’s painfully visible all the time. Like he’s grumpy and prone to disliking everyone he comes in contact with and that it’s kept him from really fitting in. But that’s not how Archie’d seen him, and Archie is his best mate. And he’s felt that way about Archie too, he’s always envied Archie’s ability to get along with everyone, the way he’s able to speak so articulately and easily. So if Archie always thought Finn fit in, and he’d always thought Archie fit in, but neither of them actually fit in… This train of thought is doing him in.

He thinks briefly that Rae would get it, Rae would be able to understand and explain it to him. She’s so smart, so bright- she always knows what’s going on, what’s best to say. 

“Arch?” He begins haltingly, unsure of how to ask what he’s trying to get at. “Rae said something this morning. She said that people would take the piss outta me for goin’ out with her. D’ya think that’s true?”

Archie winces, and he feels his heart sink. He shoots a glance at the girls at the next table, discovers that they’re no longer bothering to whisper about how fit he and Archie are. “Honestly?” Archie asks, and Finn nods without looking up from the table. “Yeah, probably. It’s messed up, but you know how the lads are.”

Archie’s voice sounds pained, and Finn looks up to find his friend staring off into the distance with a frown furrowing his forehead. Finn wonders if Archie’s worrying about Rae, or if he’s worrying about what the lads will say about him. No one knows, not even Finn really knows, so no one’s saying anything yet. But Archie has to know that he wouldn’t let anybody mess him around. It’s all so fucking stupid, all of them worrying about what other people will say, even him.

“It’s all so fuckin’ stupid.” Finn announces suddenly, vehemently. “People talk about me like I’m so bloody great, but I’m not. Not at all. You know that.”

Archie laughs sharply, widens his eyes and nods. “You’re a right wanker, really.”

Finn grins but continues, “No, I mean, I’ve been such a prick all this time. I was so shitty to all those girls, and it made me fuckin’ popular? Fuckin’ hurtin’ people makes you popular? I’ve just been all messed up since me mum…”Archie shoots him a sympathetic look, and he clears his throat and begins ripping the label off of his water bottle. “Well, I’m trying to be better now, to not be such a knobhead all the time. I’ve been different since the spring, you know. Not playing girls around and shit. It’s just Rae now, and she’s different. I don’t want to do to her what I did to Stacey, or Kathleen.” He shudders.

“You are different, Finn. You are doing better. You won’t hurt Rae like that. Chop’d give you a right beating if you did, anyway.”

“Not you?” Finn laughs and Archie pulls a face and shakes his head. 

“Nah, I’ll let Chop handle defending his Raemundo’s honor. He gave me a right talking to after our date.”

“You deserved it, you know. “ Finn replies, hunching over the table to squint and pointing a finger at Archie, who at least has the good grace to look away and mumble ‘I know.’ “You deserved a boot for that one. I got a lecture, too, though.”

Finn sighs at the memory. Archie looks back with a relieved grin. “He did?”

“Yeah, he wouldn’t even give me Reg’s new number so I could ask about the caravan until I promised not to mess her about. Twat. Like I’d do that to Rae. Like I’d do anything to hurt Rae!” Finn shakes his head. They met her at the same time, what makes Chop think he cares anymore for Rae than Finn does?

A scary thought occurs to him suddenly: he is doing something that will hurt Rae. He refused to keep their relationship quiet at school, and if people start talking, she’s going to be hurt by it. When people start talking. He’d been so wounded when she suggested it this morning, blinded by his injured pride into ignoring her perspective. She’d said people will take the piss out of him, but she must have really meant that people would take the piss out of her. It’s him who’s too visible, him who attracts gossip. She’d been masking her fear of being made fun of behind worry for him, and he’d completely ignored it. 

But after her panic attack this morning, after watching her struggle with her fear of people talking about her, he feels ashamed of his selfishness in refusing her. He’d been excited to show off his new girlfriend, proud to be with a girl who was so sexy and brilliant and who knew her music so well. He’d told himself that it was being with her that was going to make college bearable, and the thought of not having them at school… it was abhorrent. He wouldn’t even consider it. But in doing that, he’d failed to consider her feelings. It’d been all about him- his pride in having her, his hurt feelings, his frustrations, his need to touch her, his fear of losing her. 

He knew she was struggling, she told him that people made fun of her, fuck he’d even witnessed it. He’d been frightened by how out of control he’d felt that day when he heard Big G call her names. He’d gone home shaking from the hot rush of adrenaline that had flooded him, then spent the rest of the day trying not to go round to hers to check on her. And that had just been the beginning, before he’d been stupidly head over heels in love with her. How bad would he lose it when someone called her a name now, when she was more important to him than anything? 

He should have been thinking about her, about what she wanted, what she needed. He spends so much time thinking about her bloody tits, when he should be thinking about her feelings.

“She’s going to get hurt though, isn’t she?” He says softly, glancing at the girls at the next table again. 

Archie’s nose wrinkles, and his eyes are sad behind his glasses. “People are going to say shit about her because she’s with me and she’s going to get hurt.”

“It’s not your fault, Finn.” Archie holds his gaze even after Finn lowers his head, apparently determined to get his point across. He shakes his head and shrugs. “The world is just full of arseholes.”

“So what do we do?” 

“I dunno, mate. I wish I did.” Archie stares blankly at his plate for a long moment, and Finn considers his friend, torn up with worry for all of them.

“What are you gonna do?” Archie keeps his head down, but raises his eyes to meet Finn’s. Something about the angle makes him look young again, and Finn remembers when Archie first got his glasses, how the frames were too big for his face and made him look even smaller than he already was. It had made Finn feel better at the time, he wasn’t the only one too small and drowning in the big world.

“I guess just try and fit in. Stay under the radar or whatever. Not let people know that I’m… different.” Archie blushes and swallows, glancing around quickly to keep from meeting Finn’s eyes. When Archie finally looks back, Finn is smiling ruefully at him in what he hopes is an encouraging way. Archie crooks his mouth up in a kind of smile, then picks with his fork at the wilted lettuce that is supposed to pass for a salad. Finn finishes his burger, cracks open his bag of crisps and digs in. 

In the silence that descends upon them, the girls at the next table become louder and bolder. They’re chatting openly about how they’d like to taste his sweat. Finn blushes and scowls into the mostly empty bag of crisps. It never stops. 

Archie frowns towards the girls. “Does that… does it bother you? That they talk about you? That they’ll say… things about you and Rae?”

Archie watches as Finn considers his answer. If it was someone else, even Chop, he’d brush it off, keep the stance that he’d given to Rae this morning: he doesn’t give a fuck. But this is Archie, his best mate, who he never needs to keep things from. Who won’t judge him for being bothered by people taking the piss out of him. He doesn’t have to hide from Archie. And it seems like Archie is maybe having a hard time with this same bullshit anyway, so…

“Yeah.” He says simply, shrugs and crooks his mouth. “Of course it bothers me. I mean, it’s fucked up. That people will be sayin’ shit about me for going out with her.”

Archie nods and heaves a huge sigh, and his reply is heavy with sadness and frustration. “It’s not like you can help who you like.”

 

Finn furrows his brow as he considers Archie’s words, and his source of sadness. “I wouldn’t even if I could, mate. I want her, it’s just… I can take it, you know. She’s worth it.” Finn goes back to peeling his label off and shredding it, unable to meet his mate’s gaze. “But I’m worried about her, about how hard it will be for her. I told you about those twats at the chippy, right?” Archie nods. “It’s just, I think people do that kind of shit to her all the time. I think it really gets to her.”

“It would get to anybody.”

“Yeah, but… I think… I don’t think she’s better like she said. I think she still has a hard go of things, you know?” Finn’s torn the whole label up by this point, and he stares helplessly at his still fingers. It’s hard to talk about, hard to think about even. He wants her to be happy, to see herself the way he sees her. He wants everything to be perfect for his perfect Rae. He feels a bit guilty, discussing her like this, but… he’s worried about her, and talking to Archie usually makes thing somehow better. 

Finn glances up briefly to look at his friend. Archie looks sad for Rae, and maybe for himself. His eyes are soft and sympathetic, and his mouth quirks slightly. “I don’t think that kind of stuff really just gets better. I think it takes a while, a long time.”

“Yeah. So what if she can’t take it? What if I’m not worth the extra shit to her?” It’s not until he says it out loud that Finn realizes how heavily this has been worrying him. Because he’s not. He knows perfectly well that he’s not worth the shit. He wasn’t to his Mum, why would it be any different with Rae? He’s been a prick for years, was a prick to her. What could there be in him that would be worth putting up with all the bullshit? Nothing.

“Finn, it’s not like that. She’s crazy about you, has been for ages. You know that.” Archie’s frowning, and the words come out more severe than reassuring. Finn nods, but he doesn’t totally believe it. When he and Rae had first gotten together, Archie’d made a big fuss about how the two of them had liked each other forever but neither of them had had the guts to do anything about it. Archie’d interpreted weeks worth of Rae’s inscrutable behavior as evidence of her crush, but Finn still wonders about it all. 

Especially since she’d admitted about her… stuff. It seems much more likely that she’d just had stuff going on that made her confusing, rather than fancying him in secret all that time. 

Of course, he knows she likes him now. She actually kisses him sometimes. He’s just not sure about the strength, the fortitude of her feelings in the face of the mocking that’s going to come. 

“I keep telling her it’s fine, that people aren’t looking, that they won’t talk, but its total bullshit.” He laughs without mirth, wads the crisp bag up and smoothes it back out just for something to do with his hands. “I don’t want her to worry about it, even though I worry about it. I’m such a hypocrite. I just don’t know what else to do.”

“Me either, mate. Sorry. I wish I did, for you and me both.” Archie grimaces as he shakes his head, reaches to push back his glasses. “Maybe we should just form our own little rejects club, forget all those twats.”

It doesn’t sound like a bad plan, really. If they can just stick to the gang, just hang out with each other as much as they did over the summer and ignore everything else, it might be okay. He wishes they could just live the summer forever, an endless suspension of drinking during the day and listening to music with Rae and meeting up with the gang at the pub. He wishes they’d never have to deal with autumn problems, with the rude interruption of real life. If only he could keep Rae in summer, keep her with the sun in her hair and a cheeky grin on her face.

“Yeah, well, if Rae’s right, I’m going to get very unpopular real fast. It’ll be a relief actually, maybe these idiot girls will stop staring at me as if I can’t see them when they learn about my GIRLFRIEND.” Finn raises his voice and turns to shoot an irritated look at the girls at the next table, who haven’t ceased their loud admirations. He’s been trying not to look at them, trying to pretend that things are different, but he’s finally given up. If they’re going to talk, he’s going to bloody answer. The girls flush and look away, embarrassed, and Archie laughs loudly, shaking his head. 

From the back of the canteen, the bell rings, signaling the end of lunch. Finn stands and collects the heap of torn paper from his water bottle into his crisp bag, then grabs the two trays to bin the trash. When he returns to the table, Archie is staring uncomfortably around the mostly empty room. Finn grabs his bag and shoots Archie a questioning look, starting towards the door.

“Finn...” Archie’s nervous voice causes him to turn around. Archie’s hovering near their table, shifting from foot to foot. His backpack is still on the seat, and something about it makes Finn anxious. Archie hates being late to class, so whatever it is that’s making him hesitate must be important. He stares at Finn for a long moment, and Finn has to force himself to stand silently and wait. Finally, he reluctantly asks, “Do you… know?”

Finns stares blankly for a second, mind scrambling to understand what Archie’s asking. He looks at Arch, tracks his red cheeks, his shifting eyes, his wringing hands- and suddenly he gets it. Archie’s asking if Finn knows why he’s different, why he might have a hard time fitting in. And the truth is, Finn’s never known. He’s suspected for years, sure, ever since they were thirteen and Archie’d taken to going to Chop’s brother’s wrestling matches and staring in fascination at the costumes the wrestlers wore. But he didn’t really know until right now. He doesn’t have to tell Archie that though, doesn’t have to admit to his terrible jealousy towards him. 

“You’re my best mate, Arch. ‘Course I know.” Finn says, shooting him a crooked smile that he hopes is reassuring. Archie hangs his head for a minute, and from what he can see of his face, Finn isn’t sure if he looks relieved or terrified. He closes the distance between them and puts a hand on Archie’s shoulder, tries to comfort his best mate. “And if you think for one second that I won’t curl up any fucker who thinks they can take the piss outta you, you’re dead wrong. You’re my best mate, I love you. I got your back.”

Archie looks up and gives him a big watery grin, eyes shining with relief. He laughs, a quick burst that gets stifled by the gruff embrace that Finn pulls him into. Finn holds him tight for a long moment, then claps him on the back a couple of times and steps back, clearing his throat. If his eyes are wet, Archie won’t notice through his own tears, anyway. They stand awkwardly for a couple of seconds, Finn shuffling his feet and Archie wiping his eyes surreptitiously, before the bell rings again and Archie swears.

“Shit! We’re late for class, I hate being late.” Finn laughs as Archie scrambles to grab his backpack, but matches him stride for lengthy stride as they half-run through the halls, laughter trailing behind them.

****

He only fantasizes about her twice more that afternoon, and one of them isn’t even about sex really, just a fanciful recollection of waking up next to her that morning in the caravan. He completely misses what the history teacher says they’ll be studying this semester, but that’s what a syllabus is for, right? Archie is sure to have memorized every word anyway. He pays slightly more attention in English class, since he knows its Rae’s favorite subject and he wants to have something to tell her if she asks him about it. He destroys another pen.

The rest of the school day passes in great spurts and tiny infinitesimal seconds that go on far longer than seems possible. When he’s not thinking about what will await for him afterschool, he loses track of time and a half hour slips by without issue. It’s only when he’s imagining her face or her kiss or what they’ll listen to later that time seems to still, to the point where his thoughts take only fractions of a second. He thinks it’s likely to be a long year.

He doesn’t hear any gossip about them, so he might have been right that setting off the fire alarm distracted everyone from tracking who is dating who just yet. He’s worried for what’s to come, but mostly he’s just relieved that it’s not today. At least he’ll have one more normal afternoon with her, one more day to process the events of this morning before anything else starts. His brain is buzzing, too full up of all the things that have happened today for him to begin to break them down into manageable parts at college. He’s going to have to spend hours in the dark tonight, maybe even without music, going through everything in order to understand this crazy day. And there’s still more to come, more with Rae. And the Rae stuff always takes longer to sift through, since he ends up lingering over the shape of her lips when she laughs and the way her hair moves in the wind and shit. 

He’s gnawing his cuticles when the final bell rings, pondering the way he has to decompress everything at the end of the day. He looks down to find his thumb is bleeding just a bit. He should have stuck with the pens. The ringing of the bell jolts him from his thoughtful state, and he grins thankfully up at the clock over the board. He shoves his book and notebook into his bag and slings it over his shoulder before the teacher has even finished talking. He waits so that he’s not the first to stand, not the first through the door into the hallway, but he’s in the first three. He can’t wait to get out of this place, get outside where he can breathe again without his overcrowded thoughts clogging the air. And he can’t wait to get to her.

He absently wishes his legs were longer as he picks his way through the crowd towards the wide front doors. He’s always hated being short, but today he just wishes his stride was longer, his feet faster to take him out. He bumps into someone, looks down to offer an apology and it’s one of the girls from lunch. Her eyes are wide and alarmed at first, but then she slides on a smooth, easy smile when she sees it’s him. His words die on his lips, and the hand that he’d reached out to touch her arm drops heavily to his side. He looks at her for just a moment, just barely long enough to take in her head tilted to the side in curiosity, before he turns again and makes his way outside. He’s not sure exactly why, but the brief encounter has unnerved him. He feels a prickling of unease make its way down the back of his neck and he shudders, but before long he makes his way through the entrance and the soft breeze in the courtyard chases it away.

He exhales heavily as he steps outside, squints up at the sky like he’s a prisoner who’s just been let out after years locked away. He rummages through his bag for his sunglasses as he walks towards a nearby picnic table, one close to where they’d stood this morning flirting and laughing before school. It feels like a different day, a different age. He leans back against the table and scans around looking for his mates. 

He hasn’t spotted anyone yet, but he reasons that he hightailed it out of there pretty fast and it’s likely that no one else has emerged. He reaches into his bag again and pulls out his smoke tin, takes out a cigarette that he’d rolled last night in preparation for this moment. He should probably move further away from the school to smoke, but he doesn’t want to miss Rae when she comes out, so he settles against the table and lights up.

The first drag is heaven, and all the ragged edges of him that he’s been trying to ignore seem to smooth out a bit. The frenetic pace of his mind begins to slow, and as his shoulders loosen, he realizes it’s the first time he’s felt relaxed all day. He twists his neck, shifts his head from side to side and focuses on the steady in and out of the smoke in his lungs. 

He’s just about burned down the whole cigarette when he sees Rae and Chloe emerge arm in arm. They haven’t seen him yet, so he takes the opportunity to watch Rae as she walks, pulling one last drag deep into his lungs. Looking at her feels the same as that last drag, a slow burn that fills him up and soothes something deep inside him. She’s laughing at something Chloe is saying, and her face is so radiant in her humor that he can’t help but smile himself. Her hair swings around her as she walks, and the sun reflects in its sheen like a golden halo. She looks like summer Rae again, carefree and happy, and he thinks that just maybe they will be able to steal one more afternoon like an Indian summer.

She smiles when she spots him, a blush blooms in her cheeks as she offers him a shy, stiff wave from across the courtyard. She says something to Chloe, and the girls wind their way around the milling teenagers in his direction. He watches carefully, but he doesn’t see any sign of her panic from this morning- she’s clear eyed, head up, not manically searching to see who is looking at her. He takes a moment to examine the people around them from behind the safety of his glasses, but he doesn’t turn his head to ensure Rae doesn’t know he’s looking. He scans the faces of the people around them, sees a couple of heads turned towards the girls, but not in a way that alarms him. He lets out a breath that he didn’t know he was holding. It’s not today. At least it’s not today.

He straightens up and rubs out the end of his cigarette with the toe of his boot as the girls reach him. He smiles brightly at them, steps forward to place a hand on Rae’s arm in greeting and is surprised when she leans in to kiss his cheek. He touches her waist briefly before she steps back, considers reaching to hold her hand like he’d done this morning, but refrains. They’re still very much in the middle of college, and while he doesn’t want to hide his relationship with her, he’s thinking there’s not a lot of sense in flaunting it, either. 

“Alright girls?” He asks, flexing his fingers where they hang at his side. Rae, quick as ever, tracks the movement and tilts her head to give him a soft smile. He looks at both of them, but directs his question mostly to Rae. “How was your day?”

“Alright.” Rae offers with a shrug, moving casually to stand beside him until her fingers brush against his. “Better.”

“Yeah, well, mine was a bit shit actually. I saw three girls wearing the same dress as me! Three!” Chloe laments, and Finn looks at his feet to hide his smile. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you guys later. Call me tonight, babes?” She shoots Rae a significant look, and Rae widens her eyes before looking at the ground.

“Yeah. Later Chlo.” Rae steps forward and the girls wrap their arms around each other for a second. 

Finn’s fingers feel cold when she moves away, which is stupid since they weren’t even touching her really. All this time fantasizing about touching her, and her touching him, and he’s still misses the barely there graze of her fingers. Because touching her, really touching her, is about a thousand times better than his fantasies.

“Bye Chloe.” He waves once.

Rae tucks her palms into her sleeves and taps the heels of her hands against her thighs as an awkward silence descends upon them. It’s the first time they’ve been alone since the almosts of this morning, and all the unsaid things are lying thickly in the air. He smiles at her and shrugs, feeling the tension in his muscles start to return. He wonders if there’s another cigarette ready to go in his tin, or if they should stop long enough for him to roll another. It’d be really nice to have something to do with his hands just now- he can’t remember how he usually holds them. 

“Ready girl?” He asks, gesturing forward. They walk side by side and he considers taking her hand again, looks at her from the corner of his eye, trying to gauge how she’d react. He’d better not chance it. “I was thinking maybe we should stop for something to eat before we go to mine. There’s not really much to snack on.”

“No!” She says harshly, and he turns to look at her in confusion. Does she not want to go round to his anymore? Does she not want to be with him? She raises wide eyes towards his, and he gets the vague impression that whatever she’s about to say will only be half the truth. He suppresses the notion- why would she lie to him? “I, uh… I have to pop home for a bit before I go to yours. Leave a note for my mum.”

“Oh. That’s alright. I’ll walk with you, wait for you.” Of course he’ll walk with her, he’s been looking forward to being with her all day. There’s not much he’d rather do than walk along beside her, chatting and maybe holding hands. And all the things he’d rather do require her anyway.

“No, no! It’s silly for you to walk me all the way home and wait around for me. My house is further than yours.” She’s quick to reply, and he furrows his brow in wounded frustration. Maybe she does just want to get away from him. But then, she’s had a confusing and eventful day too, maybe she just needs some time alone to get her head straight. He understands the feeling, he could use some time on his own too, to shuffle some stuff out of his brain and make space to just enjoy spending time with her, enjoy her. So he’ll give her that space, let her go home for a bit first, as long as she does come to his later.

“Are you sure, Rae? I don’t mind.” He offers, trying to gauge if she really needs the space or if she’s just being polite, and she nods firmly.

“Yeah.” She smiles and shrugs her shoulders briefly. “It’s fine. I’ll just go home for a bit, and then I’ll come round in an hour.”

“Ok.” He concedes, wrinkling his nose at her and watching her mirror the movement. It’s such a small, silly thing, but he feels like it’s shorthand for something much bigger. That dumb little crinkle in her nose is another way of saying she cares about him. He’s reassured, and he reaches for her hand without thinking about it. He has a moment of worry, thinking she might pull away, but she squeezes his hand gently and gives him a wide, soft smile, the smile. The one she only gives him when she’s feeling tender and sweet. The one that makes his heart pound so heavily in his chest. She’s given him that smile more today than she ever has before. It’s going to be a fucking great afternoon.

They walk together in silence for a bit, and Finn thinks absently about how far they’ve come in just a couple of weeks. It wasn’t that long ago that she was kissing Archie at the rave, leaving him feeling crushed and heartbroken, and now he’s contentedly holding her hand and looking forward to a snog session in an hour.

He grimaces at the recollection of that kiss, of the surge of hopelessness and jealousy that had torn through him. What had that been about? Did Rae know about Archie? It might explain why they got on so well even after he’d stood her up. But then why would she kiss him at the rave? He should just ask her. He can ask her. He can talk to her about stuff. The trust thing she’d said this morning, it should go both ways. He should be sure that she’s not going anywhere either, he should just ask her so he’s not living in this constant fear of her realizing he’s nothing special and leaving him behind like his mum did. She’d shared some of her stuff this morning, he should do the same. 

“Rae?” He begins, and he winces a bit at how tentative it sounds. He shouldn’t be so nervous to talk to her, she’s his girlfriend. He’s just so fucking lousy at finding the words, and the truth of it is that he’s scared all the time that he’s going to do or say something that will chase her off. 

“Hmm?” She says absently, and when she looks at him, he can tell that she was lost in her own thoughts until he spoke. He struggles to form words, to make himself spit out the sentence that’s choking him. Rae gives him a smile and squeezes his hand again, and his chest constricts as he agonizes over whether or not to ask her. 

“Why’d you kiss Archie at the rave?” It comes out in a tumble, a barely comprehensible string of words, but at least he’s managed to get it out. The tightness of his chest abates a bit once he says it, until he looks at her startled expression. Oh God, he has managed to freak her out.

“You saw that?” She says in a whisper, and he can’t interpret her tone or her expression at all. He starts to feel a little panicky until she laughs. “Of course you did. Is that why... you and Chloe?”

He winces. He’d conveniently forgotten that he’d behaved contrary to his feelings too. And she’d seen… He blows out a gust of air and nods, studying his boots as they move. “I… I just… I’d hoped something would happen that night, y’know? We’d dance or something, and… Well. When I saw you kissing Archie, I just… I dunno really. I thought there was no hope.”

Rae tugs him to a stop, and he looks up and realizes that they’re on the corner for the turn towards his house. She looks around them for a second, then pulls him into a hug. He wraps his arms around her, rests his cheek against her hair and breathes in the scent of her shampoo.

“It was nothing, the kiss with Arch. We were both high, and… I dunno. We’re good friends, and it just happened. I wish it hadn’t. I didn’t know you… I wanted something to happen between us too.” She shrugs and shoots him a rueful grimace, then tilts her head down and chuckles softly. He can feel her warm breath gust against his t-shirt, and his arms tighten around her just a bit. “Do you remember that day at Rutlands? When Kendo showed up?”

“When I put my legs over you?” He grins, nodding and jostling her gently. “Honestly, I don’t know how you missed that I fancied you, when I was goin’ around doing stuff like that.”

Rae laughs, and he smiles to see a pleased flush warm her cheeks. She’s especially pretty when she blushes like that. “Right. Well. Do you remember when we were lyin’… with your legs over me… and you asked me what I was thinkin’?” He nods and tries to memorize her expression. “I was lying there with you, picturin’ dancing together and snogging at the rave. I don’t know how you missed that I fancied you, when I was goin’ around fantasizing about you with you right next to me.”

She licks her bottom lip as she looks down and giggles breathily, and it’s maybe the sexiest thing he’s ever heard. Way sexier than all the dirty things fantasy Rae says to him in his imagination. She’s so vibrant, so unpredictable. He’s so fucking in love with her, and how could he not be when she’s saying stuff like that. 

He bends to kiss her, but she’s not looking, and they mush faces for a moment before he pulls back. Rae giggles again, and this time, he places a hand on her cheek to steer her lips to his. It’s a light kiss, a bubbly kiss with the hint of laughter still on her lips. She’s grinning when he opens his eyes, and he shakes his head and tries again, determined to unsettle her the way she’s always doing to him. Talking about fantasizing about him, seriously. Is she trying to do him in? He’s already inclined to drag her back to his and snog her senseless, note or no note. 

He makes it a bit of a tease this time, slides his lips against hers like a whisper before moving away once again. She leans in, wanting more, and he obliges, increasing the pressure of his mouth for a long moment before retreating. Then he goes in for the kill, kissing her gently and running his tongue over her bottom lip to gain entrance. When she opens her mouth, he darts his tongue in and dances it against hers in a searing caress, pouring all of the latent desire from his fantasies into the kiss. She gasps and pulls back abruptly, and he laughs at the dazed expression on her face.

Her hand is fisted in his t-shirt, and she unclenches her fist slowly and smoothes the fabric over his chest before stepping out of his arms and giving him a reproving look. “Not fair, Finnley.” She wags a finger at him, squints even though a smile is dancing around the corners of her mouth. She walks backwards, slowly putting distance between the two of them. “An hour. One hour, okay? Hold that thought.”

“Alright, girl. One hour.” He laughs as she turns and begins to walk off. She spins around for a moment as he calls out, “Don’t be late!”

He’s smiling stupidly, he knows, as he watches the movement of her hips until she disappears around a corner, but he can’t help it. He can never help it where Rae is concerned. She just makes him happy, just makes everything better when she’s around. It’s been this huge emotional kind of day, and he’s got lots to sort through in his head, but it all seems to fade away when she’s around. 

He turns the corner and walks briskly home, determined to tidy his house before she comes over. He knows there are dishes in the sink from last night, and he definitely didn’t make his bed this morning. Come to think of it, he’d better change his sheets, too. Just in case. He wouldn’t want Rae lying in sheets that he’s wanked in. Lying next to him, fantasizing about him. Fuck.

As he unlocks the door, he sighs in relief and finally allows himself to think about all the things that have happened today. He tosses his bag on the kitchen table, pours himself a glass of water and roots around the fridge until he finds an apple. He sits at the table, props his feet up on a chair and chews as he reviews. 

Something had niggled at him about the other night in the caravan. Things had gone well, way better than he’d expected them to. He’d had great hopes about shagging in the caravan, lots of ridiculous meticulous fantasies and plans, but he never actually thought they’d do it, never really thought about what it would mean for them if they did. It had gone well, and it felt like they’d made some serious breakthroughs, like they’d gotten closer emotionally as well as physically. But still, he hadn’t been able to let go of the feeling that something wasn’t quite right with her, like there were things still to be said.

So, he’d invited her to breakfast. He’d wanted to see her, of course, he was always anxious to spend one on one time with her, but he’d mostly wanted to check in and make sure things were okay. It was good that he had, because things definitely weren’t okay. He thinks about the way she’d frozen when he’d mentioned Big G, how tears had filled her eyes and she’d tried to hide from him. It hurts to think about how upset he’d made her, how upset that whole thing made her. Maybe he should look up that twat again, give him a seeing to that will keep him from saying shit to anyone ever again. That fucker had hurt Rae so much, it only seems fair that Finn hurts him back.

He tosses his apple core in the bin, moves to start loading the dishwasher. He stares blankly out the window and thinks about that stupid girl from the café who’d been talking about them, about those girls at the next table during lunch. They hadn’t escaped the day unscathed, but it’s probably only minimal in comparison with what’s to come. So what can he do, really? How can he make sure that Rae knows that she’s nothing like what people say, that she’s brilliant and beautiful and sexy and he’s completely in love with her? Maybe he’ll strip her down to nothing when she gets there and kiss every bit of her and praise every single inch. Just so that she’ll know that he finds her extraordinary.

He climbs the stairs two at a time, and goes directly in to his room to strip the bed. He shoves the dirty sheets into his laundry basket and picks up the stray clothes that he’d discarded this morning, tossing them in a pile at the bottom of his closet. He sniffs at his armpit, then pulls his shirt off and shrugs on a fresh one. He tidies his room quickly, taking a couple of dirty mugs down to the dishwasher and stacking a scattered pile of NMEs. He grabs fresh sheets and makes his bed, then stands in the middle of his room and gives it a quick once over to make sure there’s nothing incriminating sticking out. Satisfied, he glances at the clock, sure it’s almost time for her to get there. It’s been fifteen minutes.

Groaning, Finn collapses on the bed and tosses an arm over his eyes. After a second, he sits up and pries open the window, breathes deeply the cool breeze that drifts over his face. He returns to his earlier position, returns the arm blocking his eyes and remembers that day at Rutlands under the lens of the new information Rae’d given him. He grins. She’d been thinking about him, fantasizing, she said. He wonders if her fantasies are anything like his. He wonders what he does in her fantasies. Maybe he’ll be brave and ask her later. Asking her about Archie had gone pretty well, after all. 

Archie. He can’t believe that Archie’d actually told him today. It feels… strange. Good, that his best mate had finally felt like he could trust him with his big secret. But weird too. Will they have to start talking about blokes now? Like whether they were a good snog, or how fit they were? He’s not opposed, but it’ll take some getting used to- the absence of this big secret. Archie’d seem so relieved. Did he really think that Finn would reject him for being gay? That he’d feel any differently about Archie at all? He thinks about Archie’s sadness when they’d talked about not being able to help who you liked. It’s such a messed up thing, that the world thinks it can have a say over who you fancy, over who you love.

He spends a long time recalling Rae’s eyes when she’d almost said it. They were red from the crying, but they were clear and so bright that they had almost burned. Was she really going to say it? He hopes so. God, he hopes so. He’d told her he loved her, but she’d yet to say it back. He’s pretty sure she feels it. There’s no way she didn’t feel that connection when they’d fallen asleep together after making love.  
He winces internally, laughs silently at himself. Look at him, thinking how they’d made love. He’s so gone on this girl that it’s not even funny. He thinks of how it had felt when she’d come out of her panic and thrown her arms around him- like he was strong and good, like he was everything she needed. God that had felt good.

She feels so good. Everything about her just feels good. All of it. Her soft skin, the satiny spill of her hair, the gentle give of her lips.

Her lips, he can’t wait to kiss those lips. To taste her once again.

She feels so good.

He slips gently off to sleep, arm still tossed over his face, a smile gracing his lips. He doesn’t mean to, he had no intention of napping when he’d lied down, but it’s been an emotionally exhausting day, and his brain needs to shut down to process it all.

He sleeps the deep sleep of the dead, and when a knocking sounds through the house, it winds its way into his dreams and he doesn’t wake.


	4. Chapter 4

Rae’s grinning as she finishes scribbling a note for her mum and tosses the pen down on the counter in her haste to get to Finn’s. It had only taken a few minutes to walk the blocks between Finn’s street and hers. She chuckles into the silent house, thinking that if she’d always had Finn as a motivation for moving fast, she’d likely be a lot thinner than she was now. She’d practically jogged home, then rushed up the stairs so fast that she was panting by the time she’d actually made it to her room.

She’d thanked her lucky stars that she’d washed her only set of boy-appropriate underwear the night before, shimmied into them quicker than she’d ever put anything on in her life. And then she’d done something truly scary; she’d stood in front of her mirror in only those green panties and bra and forced herself to look at the things that were good in her body, the places where Finn had lingered over her skin or complimented her. It’d been a risk, she knew. It was only two days ago that just looking at her clothed body had made her afraid to get close with him, but she’d hoped that her revelation about trusting him combined with her excitement for the afternoon would make it bearable. 

And, miracle of miracles, she’d been right.

Rae’d stared into that mirror and looked at the breasts Finn had been so anxious to get his hands on, and saw them for what they were- a little too big, maybe, but high and pert, and kind of sexy in that green bra. She skipped over her stomach, still inclined towards disgust towards that flabby part of herself, but skated her hands over her sides, thinking about the way his hands had lingered on her skin, the glide of his slightly rougher hands over her smoothness. Her skin was good, too. She’d looked at the vee of her thighs, the paleness of her skin highlighted by the green lace, and thought about the ways he’d given her pleasure there, the way he was going to do it again shortly. 

She’d laughed as she stood mostly naked in front of herself, finally able to see that there were some good parts in the mess that was Rae Earl, and whispered to herself, “It’s fuckin’ embarrassin’ how good I look somedays.”

Then she’d hurried back into her clothes, brushed out her hair and spritzed on a little body spray. Now here she was in the kitchen, note completed, scanning through her brain to make sure everything was done. She wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be anything niggling at her when she got to Finn’s, she wanted to be able to enjoy herself completely. 

It’s almost disgusting how cheerful she is, humming to herself as she grabs her backpack and locks the door. She pauses for a second, then pops back inside to check the clock. Her hour is not even half gone, and it really only takes a few minutes to walk to Finn’s. She stands in the open doorway, swaying from one foot to the other as she debates stalling at home for a bit or just heading over. She doesn’t want to seem too eager; after that kiss before she left, he’s already got too much of the power. But the fact is, she is eager, and ultimately her eagerness wins over her desire to stay aloof. She doesn’t need aloof anymore, she trusts him.

She relocks the door and heads out, her usual ambling pace quickened just a bit. She’s still slow enough to bask in the sun on her face, in the way the sheet of her dark hair warms against her neck. She thinks to herself about how much lovelier the day seems on this side of college, how much potential the afternoon has now that they’re not in the pressure cooker of school.

She deliberately fills up her brain with Finn, flashing through thoughts of his freckles across the bridge of his nose, the press of his long steady fingers splayed across her back, the way he’d leaned against the building as she’d walked up this morning. She smiles to herself as she recalls piece after piece of him, pleased that he belongs to her, that she’s allowed to think of him all she wants. She’d done the same thing when she was fighting her insane crush on him, but then the thoughts had been stolen and guilty. Now they’re free, hers for the taking whenever she wants. 

She finds herself standing outside his house, smiling fondly up at his bedroom window. She’s early, so she lets herself just enjoy the moment. Her in her sex underwear with the sun in her hair, looking up into Finn Nelson’s bedroom where she is soon to be experiencing the joys of his talented fingers and sweet mouth. A breeze blows his curtains out and they flutter against the windowsill. Rae imagines he’s up there in his bed, watching the fabric move in the wind, waiting for her to arrive. What on Earth is she doing out here when she could be in there, in his bed, with him?

She steps up the walk and knocks on the door, three sharp taps. She waits for a bit, but doesn’t hear or sense any movement in the house, so she knocks again, a little harder this time. Again she waits, but there’s nothing.

Rae frowns at the door. He did say he wanted to stop and get something to eat. Maybe he went to the chippy and he’s just not back yet. She turns around to glance down the street, then roots around in her backpack for a bit until she finds her watch. She was supposed to show up fifteen minutes from now. She can wait. She’s had plenty of practice anticipating Finn. 

Rae settles herself on the front stoop, legs bent in front of her and absently scratches at her palm. She wonders if he’ll say it- the big, terrible, wonderful thing that’s been haunting the air between them all day. She’s been thinking about it pretty much nonstop since this morning, holding on to those almost spoken words like a buoy, keeping her afloat in the treacherous waters of her brain. Will it change once they’re spoken? Will they lose some of their power once they’re finally tangible and no longer just a specter at the edge of her vision? It’s a scary thought, but she’s comforted by how little anxiety she has about it. Something changed this morning, and now she’s got so much less fear. She closes her eyes and smiles as the breeze tickles strands of her hair around her neck. 

Out of nowhere, something dreadful occurs to her.

She stands and walks backwards until she’s looking up at his window again, watches as the restless wind sends his curtains streaming outside once more. His window is open, which means he is home. And if he’s home and not answering the door, it’s because he doesn’t want to see her.

She feels staggered by the weight of this realization, her knees feel like they’re going to give out beneath her. But she can’t think of anything more pathetic than sitting on her boyfriend’s, no it’s probably ex-boyfriend’s, lawn crying over being discarded so abruptly, so she forces herself to stand straight, to put one foot in front of the other and walk home. 

The tears come, of course, as she jerkily forces her feet to tread the same pavement back towards her house. She’s so stupid, so fucking uselessly stupid. Of course he doesn’t want to see her. She’s completely mental, and she had a fucking panic attack in fucking front of him this morning. It’s no wonder he wants nothing to do with her, why would anyone want anything to do with her? She doesn’t even want anything to do with her.

So it’s over. She knew it was too good to last anyway, it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

It was all probably some kind of sick joke, where the fit lad tries to get the fat girl to fall in love with him. He was probably faking the whole thing, he was probably repulsed by her blubber when he’d gotten her clothes off. He’d probably laughed about it with his mates, joked about how stupid she was to actually believe he wanted her. 

No, she can’t believe that. It had been real. It had to have been real. There were moments- in the caravan with his hips pressed against hers, in the café this morning when his lips said all the things that he couldn’t, when he’d held her in the shade of the trees at college- when she’d known, when she’d been absolutely certain it was real. It had all been real.

It just wasn’t anymore. 

She’d known. She’d felt that sick slithering in her belly this morning when she’d imagined all the things people’d say, felt it writhe and churn within her as she imagined how Finn would react. She’d known it would all become too much for him, known it was really only a matter of time before he ended it all. With the exception of that one shining moment in the trees when she’d felt like he might be able to hang on, she’d known they were doomed from the start. She just thought he’d last longer, thought he’d have the guts to tell her to her face, at least.

But when someone’s done with you, they’re done with you. She knows that. It’s not the first time she’s been dropped without a word. It’s just the first time it’s been by someone she was in love with.

This thought is too much, pushes her over the edge, and she ducks into an alley and presses her back against a wall as her knees finally give. Stupid knees, they’ve been able to carry her excess fat for all these years and now they cave under the hollow weight of her broken heart. 

She’s only a block from home, she can see her hedges, or at least she would be able to if tears weren’t blinding her. But she can’t force her body to support her anymore, can’t get her useless knees to bend and carry her those last few meters. Rae allows herself to sink until she’s sitting, then curls herself up to press her face into her knees hard enough that she can feel the ridge of her eye sockets. It brings her a morbid sense of relief to feel her bones. She’s more than just her feelings, she’s skin and blood and bones. She’s injured but not destroyed. It’s enough to slow her tears to a more manageable level.

Rae’s stiff as she stands up, even her muscles feeling the impact of this brutal break up. She wipes her cheeks, wraps her arms around herself and trudges the remaining distance to her front door. She’ll hold it together until she’s safely ensconced in her bed, then she can let the pain take over, let herself sob as long as she needs until she can accept the truth.

It’s over between her and Finn. She’s in love with him, and it’s over.

***

Chloe rings at half seven.

Rae’s already in her pajamas, puffy eyed and bleary. She cried for nearly two hours, cried so hard that her cheeks felt raw and chapped from the salt in her tears. She’d tried taking a shower to obscure the evidence of her tears, but as she’d stared at herself in the mirror afterwards, she’d been sure it wouldn’t take more than a second glance to know how she’d spent her afternoon. She’d made a brief appearance downstairs to appease her Mum, before claiming tiredness and returning to her bed to stare blankly at the ceiling. 

So Chloe’s call is an unwelcome disturbance from Rae’s dark musings, and she groans as she makes her way across the hall to her Mum’s room to get the phone.

“’Lo?” Her voice sounds curiously blank, but Rae doesn’t have enough energy to care. 

“Rae?” 

“I’ll just hang up then, chicken. Have a nice evening, Chloe dear.”

“Bye Mrs. Bouchtat!” Chloe’s cheerful voice rings down the line, muffled by the noise around her. There’s a pause as they both wait to hear the click of the other receiver disconnecting. “Where are you, you silly cow? You were supposed to be here half an hour ago!”

“Uh…” Rae’s brain stalls, unable to come up with a way to explain why she’s not at the pub. Why she might never be at the pub again. She forces herself to think it, tries to work up to saying it. Finn and I broke up. “I’m… I’m just tired tonight.”

Rae squeezes her eyes shut as she chickens out, hating lying to Chloe. It’s true, she supposes, she is exhausted from crying all afternoon. It’s just not the whole truth. But there’s no point in telling her and spoiling her evening, spoiling the whole gang’s evening really. She wonders if Finn’s there with them, silent and brooding, chain smoking as he anxiously waits to see if she’s smart enough to know when she’s been binned.

Chloe laughs. “Yeah, I’m sure you are. Tired from shagging Finn’s brains out all afternoon, I bet! You saucy little minx! He’s not here either. Oh God, you guys aren’t still at it!”

Rae forces herself to give a weak chuckle, sure it sounds as empty as she feels. But Chloe’s never been great with subtext, and she seems to believe it. “No… I’m just tired like I said. You have fun, though, ok Chloe? Have a drink for me.”

There’s a long moment of silence, and Chloe sounds worried when she finally replies. “Is everything okay, Rae?”

Rae has a moment of indecision. Maybe she should tell Chloe. That’s what best mates are supposed to be for, right? To sympathize with you when your way-too-fit-for-the-likes-of-you boyfriend dumps you? But then she remembers Chloe’s smug face when she confessed that it was her who’d sent the love letter to Finn, remembers that it was only a few weeks ago that she and Chloe were in a silent competition for Finn’s affections. She can envision perfectly the exultation that would grace Chloe’s face when she discovered that Rae’d lost after all. So she bites her tongue and forces herself to fake a cheerful voice.

“Of course, babes! See you tomorrow, yeah?” Rae enthuses, eyes wide to better fake it. She hangs up the phone before Chloe replies, stares at it as it rests in its cradle. It’s depressing. Even the phone is designed to be half of a whole.

Rae stands wearily and walks out of the room, pauses to call down the stairs. “Mum, I’m going to bed, alright?”

Linda appears at the foot of the stairs, she cocks her head as she looks up at Rae with concern pinching her brows. “Everything alright, love? I thought you were to be meeting your friends at the pub tonight. You’re not coming down with something, are you? Cause Karim’s only just started his new job and he can’t afford to be out sick.”

“I’m fine, Mum.” Rae’s annoyed. Can’t her Mum ever care about her? Everything’s always about Karim. A flash of inspiration strikes her. “Actually, I think I might be coming down with something after all. Maybe I’ll just stay in my room for the next couple of days, to be safe? Wouldn’t want to infect Karim.”

Linda nods thoughtfully, then narrows her eyes and points a finger at Rae. “You’re not skipping college tomorrow, Rachel Earl. I don’t care how sick you are, you’re still going!”

Rae rolls her eyes and shrugs, too tired to bother arguing any further. It makes no difference, anyway. There’s no way she can face college, she won’t be going no matter what her Mum says. She makes her way back to bed, expecting a long, wretched night of misery and tears. She turns off the lights and flicks on the stereo, Jeff Buckley’s crooning a perfect counterpart to her quiet agony. 

As she settles in bed, Rae allows herself to wonder about Finn being absent at the pub. He’s probably just trying to avoid her, really drive home the point that he doesn’t want to see her anymore. Ever. 

She lets herself imagine him one more time, vowing that this will be the last night that she lets herself linger in thoughts of him. It’s painful, so painful, but she pictures him sprawled across his bed, looking up at the curtains as they drift in the breeze, one hand behind his head, the other languid over his belly. She envisions his long fingers, sees them twitch slightly as they keep time with the music. He’s still wearing his boots in her fantasy, and she laughs softly at the thought of the imaginary dirt he’d be getting on his imaginary sheets. A slow, warm smile spreads across his face at the sound of her laughter, ending up in that special smile he wears just for her.

Rae’s weary mind holds on to that image as she drifts into healing, peaceful sleep. She’s jarred awake briefly by the shrill ringing of the phone, but it cuts off quickly, and she’s asleep again in seconds.

***

Skipping college was easy. Far easier than she anticipated. All she’d had to do was hide behind some shrubbery and wait until her Mum’s car was around the corner. No one even looked twice as she strolled off of campus and down the street back towards town.

She’d had one moment of panic when she spotted Finn across the courtyard. She’d stood frozen for a minute, staring fixedly at him as he stood chatting with a few boys. But he’d turned his head, scanning the area around him, and she’d come to her senses and scurried off. The whole reason she was cutting class was to avoid him, and there she was, pathetically staring at him right out in the open, practically begging to be caught.

She hadn’t wanted to go home right away, so she’d wandered down the high street, peering in shop windows absently. She had tea at a little café, lost in bleak reminiscing about breakfast the day before. She felt morose, lonely, unmoored from the world around her, like there was nothing tying her to her life. She considered running away from home, wandering down the highway until some kindly stranger picked her up and drove her off to places unknown. Maybe it’d be an axe murderer, like in the movies, and he’d finish the job that she’d so poorly undertaken months before.

It’d probably be better for everyone if she just disappeared. 

She wandered through a bookshop, spent an hour in a secluded armchair reading a true-crime book thriller about a serial killer who abducted and murdered a dozen women. But the women were all thin and beautiful, and she became disgusted with herself that she wasn’t even good enough for murdering. What kind of serial killer would waste his talents on a blob like her? Then she spent another twenty minutes pondering how fast someone would have to be driving for their car to kill her on impact. Fast, she thinks, because of how much she weighs. Much faster than anyone drives around here. Big G had hardly done any real damage, after all.

By this time it was lunch, and she’d slowly plodded the familiar path home, only to stand in front of the larder in utter indecisiveness. She closed it a few minutes later, appetite lost. Maybe she’d lose some weight from having a broken heart. Maybe Finn chucking her cruelly would be good for her after all. She’d pine away, not a morsel touching her lips, until she was all skin and bones like the girls in the magazines. She’d have long, lank hair and sunken eyes and he’d feel so bad about how he’d treated her when he saw how she’d wasted away. 

Fifteen minutes later, she was seated at the dining room table surrounded by dozens of treat wrappers, feeling full enough to burst. Maybe she’d eat so much that her stomach would explode and she’d die sitting right there at the table. All the neighbors would come by and stare at her grossly bloated corpse, made even more grotesque than it already was by decomposition. Finn wouldn’t attend her funeral, lest her ghost not get the point that he didn’t want her anymore.

Eventually, she threw up. It felt like a fitting punishment, like she deserved every tear that streamed down her face as she knelt over the toilet bowl. She wished she could throw up over and over until there was nothing left of her. She tried to make herself gag, tried to force herself to vomit again, but she was unsuccessful even with that. Rae Earl, complete and utter disappointment to the world.

She crawled into bed after that, took a fitful nap and woke an hour later feeling even more tired than before. She pulled out her diary, stared at the blank page for a long time without writing a word. The page was so white and clean and perfect. She’d only sully it with her bullshit. Ruin it like she ruined everything. She’d ruined Tix, she’d ruined Finn. She’d ruined everything, everything, everything. 

The red feeling started to fill her again, the scratching, burning, agitating red. It was different than the panic attack black, less swirling and more spiky. The black feeling eventually descends like a storm cloud and takes her over, sometimes even making her pass out. But the red feeling… the red feeling just gets worse and worse until she lets it out. It’ll grow, she knows, it’ll get itchier and more and more painful until she cuts and lets it out, releases the red feeling with the red of her blood. She sits on the floor with her back against the bed and traces the scars along her thighs with her index finger, pressing her fingernail through the thin fabric of her leggings, envisioning the cool press of the blade against her skin. There’s no music playing.

That’s when she remembers that she’s to meet Kester in half an hour, and the thought of his smooth bald head and his stupid putty face is somehow enough to restore her equilibrium a bit, to push the red feeling back to a whisper in the corners of her mind. It tethers her, makes her feel more like herself than she has all day. 

She stands up and haphazardly shoves a few things in her bag without even really seeing what they are- a troll doll, a box of tissues, her diary, a scrunchie. It’s suddenly imperative that she goes to therapy right now. She reasons it out- her Mum might not find out about her missing school, but she’d definitely find out if she blew off therapy.

But really she just wants to see his face, have him pull her back, tell her that she can live through this day, live through her life on the other side of breaking up with Finn.

***

“So, yesterday was your first day at college. Tell me about that.” Kester leans back in his chair and crosses one knee over the other. 

Rae shakes her head obstinately, shrugs without words, though she’s burning to tell him what’s been happening, burning for him to make it better. She feels betrayed somehow. She expected to feel better sitting in this office, expected that the emptiness and the redness would abate somehow in Kester’s presence. But it hasn’t yet, and she finds nearly everything about him to be frustrating today. 

He’s got a stain on the shin of his right leg, something red. Jam, maybe, or ketchup. His shirt is gray and wrinkled, and she feels mildly repulsed that Kester can’t get his shit together enough to even put on decent clothes. How the fuck is he supposed to help her?

“I had a panic attack.” She announces aggressively, wanting to unsettle him. She can tell he expects her to be difficult today, and she grins just a little when she sees him unclench his arms and lift his eyebrows in surprise. “I didn’t even make it five fucking minutes before flipping out.”

“And what do you think might have triggered that reaction?”

Rae crosses her arms and rolls her eyes at the ceiling. Of course, turn it back on the patient. Standard issue therapy today, then. Can’t he tell she needs something more? She shouldn’t have even bothered to fucking come. “You’re the shrink, you tell me.”

“Well…” He drawls, stalling for time. She watches him with pinched eyes as he bends over to retrieve a cigarette and light it. “I understand that you were bullied at school previously, and that kind of emotional abuse often leaves scars that we are not always aware of.”

Mulishly, she stares out the window, frustrated by his accuracy. She can feel him studying her, feel him drawing conclusions about her from the tightness of her jaw and the angle of her head and all that ridiculous bullshit. 

“And, you spoke last time about your anxieties about how others would react to you and your boyfriend. Did you discuss those fears with him, like I suggested?”

“Ex.” Rae whispers to the window, pissed off at the tears that are filling her eyes. She knows Kester’s keen eyes won’t miss them, that the topic is now opened whether she wanted it to be or not. Fuck.

“Sorry?” Kester asks, and she’s not sure if he’s drawing her out or if he really didn’t hear. She turns to meet her gaze, and feels a moment of gratification when he doesn’t seem surprised at her teary eyes. 

“Ex. Ex-boyfriend. He’s not my boyfriend anymore.” Rae draws her arms tighter around herself, trying to hold herself together now, rather than block Kester out.

“Ah.” He says, taking a long drag of his cigarette. Rae has the impression that he’s trying to figure out what to say, and the red feeling increases inside of her. “And that was a source of your panic attack?”

“No. The panic attack was the source of the break-up.”

“Can you explain that, please?” Kester’s brow is furrowed and he’s frowning. She’s been on the other end of this expression, of this laser beam intensity, enough times to know that this is a loaded question and that whatever her answer will be is important. 

“I…” She starts, looking away and frowning as she struggles for the words to say what she means. “He was with me when I had the panic attack. It were… you were right. I was afraid of what people’d say about us. And I kept thinking about what those girls did last year. About people taking the piss. And I just… I panicked. I were with Finn and he… he helped me, took me outside, got me to a wall. He… he stayed with me, and when it was over, I cried and he just hugged me.”

It’s too much, she can’t take reliving all this. Rae shoots up from her seat and goes to look out the window. She can’t take Kester’s eyes on her, it feels like her skin is raw, like it’s peeled up and all her insides are exposed. It’s better, somehow, with the sun on her face.

“I thought...” She turns towards him, and she knows her eyes are pleading. She just wants to understand. How could she have thought this? How could she have been so wrong? “Kester, I thought he loved me. After the panic attack was over, he kissed me and reassured me, and I had this moment where I really believed that he loved me and he wasn’t going to leave me. How stupid is that?”

She wipes at the lone tear that’s escaped as she returns to her seat, dropping heavily onto the chair. Kester’s eyes are unreadable as he stares at her. “Why is it stupid to believe that someone would love you, Rae? You’re an amazing person.”

“Because he didn’t!” Rae cries, flinging herself out of her chair and beginning to pace. “He saw how fucked up I was and then he didn’t want anything to do with me! He almost loved me, and then he saw how mental I was and didn’t want me anymore!”

Kester sighs as he snubs out his cigarette and uncrosses his legs. “A panic attack can be frightening for someone who does not understand what it is or what causes it.”

He’s unbearably infuriating. How can he sit there so calmly and reason away the break up? Finn wasn’t frightened, he was repulsed.

“He wasn’t scared, Kester. He was fine after, he invited me round to his after school.” Rae pauses in her pacing to shake her head at her therapist, hands raised in front of her. “It wasn’t that he were scared. He were… disgusted. He invited me round to his and then pretended he weren’t home to get rid of me, even though I know he was. He couldn’t even stand to look at me anymore.”

Kester’s eyes are tight, and he leans over his knees, his focus on her becoming sharper. Rae stops pacing under the weight of his stare. “Have you considered, Rae, that there might have been some other circumstance that prevented Finn from being home? Yet, you immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was there and deliberately ignoring you, with the intention of breaking up with you.”

“His window was open! That’s how I know he was there!” Rae’s affronted at the implication that she’s making this up. She may be mental, but she’s not delusional.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. You didn’t actually talk to him, did you?” Kester says, leaning back. Rae has the vague impression that he’s won some kind of intangible victory in the battle of their wills. She shakes her head numbly, then walks around and sits in her chair once more. “I’m more interested, Rae, in why you would draw this conclusion. Did your boyfriend indicate that he was going to break up with you?”

She shakes her head again, trying to wrap her head around this new perspective. Is it possible that Finn had not actually broken up with her?

“So you interpreted his silence as him breaking up with you. Why?”

“I…” Rae begins, but she’s got no idea what the answer is. “I dunno. I guess… I just thought it was inevitable. I been waiting for him to drop me this whole time.”

“And why do you think it’s inevitable, Rae?” Kester asks gently. 

“Because… he’s fit and wonderful, and I’m fat and mental.” The words tumble out of her mouth before she’s even thought them through. But that’s an easy question really, she’s always know Finn is too good for her.

Kester frowns and stares down at the carpet for a moment, rubs his hand over his mouth as he looks over her again. She can sense that he’s going to change gears. He crosses his leg and props his chin on his fist. 

“Alright. Say it is inevitable. What is going to happen when the two of you, inevitably as you say, break up? How will that effect your efforts towards recovery?”

Rae’s mouth goes dry and her heart starts to pound. This, this is the question she didn’t want him to ask. This is the answer she doesn’t want to give. Because she knows, today did not go well. She binged and very nearly cut, and she spent much of the day fantasizing about what would happen if she died. Rae closes her eyes and lowers her head, wanting to retreat from the conversation, wanting to be anywhere but here. Why did she ever think Kester could help?

“It… would be… bad.” She says, swallowing and refusing to meet his eyes. “It has been bad. It was not a good day for my recovery.”

She glances up quickly and find’s Kester’s brows are lowered and his jaw is tight. “Did you self-harm today?” He asks lowly, and Rae feels disappointed in herself.

“No. But… almost.”

Silence descends upon them, and Rae tries to bear it as long as possible. When she finally looks up, Kester’s hand is covering his mouth and his eyes are fixed on her. He abruptly lowers his hand and hunches over his legs. “The way I see it, Rae, you are setting yourself up for failure. You have embarked on this relationship with the expectation that it will be unsuccessful because you do not like yourself and you cannot believe that anyone else can like you. So, you expect the worst, seek it out. And when you feel it has happened, it reinforces the negative things you think about yourself, which places you back in danger of self-harming. It makes me wonder if you really want to get better.”

She’s stunned by his accusation, and a few tears dribble down her cheeks unnoticed as she struggles to find a reply. Is that really what she’s doing? Is she sabotaging things with Finn because she hates herself so much that she doesn’t want to get better?

“Do you want to get better, Rae?” Kester asks solemnly.

***

She’s worn out when she pushes through the front door. Therapy is often draining, and today was a major emotional overhauling. She feels completely spent. She wants nothing more than a bite to eat and Oasis on repeat.

“Mum?” She calls, dropping her keys in the little bowl by the door and kicking off her shoes.

“In here, love!” Linda’s reply sounds from the kitchen, and Rae huffs a sigh as she pulls off her jacket and turns toward the sound. Hopefully her Mum has tea made. She doesn’t need a real meal, her stomach is still a bit tender from this afternoon. A cup of tea and a couple of slices of toast would be perfect.

Linda is bent over the sink washing dishes as Rae enters the kitchen. The kettle is on the stove, steam rising from it in a wisp. Rae feels a rush of gratitude for her Mum and she passes through the room and stands next to Linda, slouching a bit to rest her head against the familiar cushion of her Mum’s shoulder. They’re not really huggers, but Rae feels stripped bare from her session with Kester, and she finds herself longing for the particular comfort only a mum can give. 

Linda makes a soft cooing sound, then reaches for a dishtowel to dry her hands. She puts an arm across Rae’s shoulders, and Rae leans a little bit more on her mum, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Linda makes the sound again, and it makes Rae think of being small again, safe and happy in her mother’s arms. Linda presses a kiss against her hair.

“Everything alright? Things go okay with Kester?” Linda pulls back to look at Rae, concern written all over her features.

“Yeah. It was…” Rae raises her shoulders for a second, then releases them with a sigh, unable to articulate for her Mum the emotional battlefield that was her therapy session. She’s saved from having to answer by the whistle of the kettle. Rae steps towards the stove to remove it when she spots movement from the corner of her eye.

She takes the kettle of the burner, her back to the room. After a moment, her brain catches up with her eyes and she spins around. Sitting at her kitchen table, anxiously biting his cuticles and clutching an empty mug is a familiar figure.

“Finn…”


	5. Chapter 5

“Finn…” she murmurs, pressing her back into the counter. She needs something to steady her unruly knees, which have yet to recover from the day before. It’s dizzying to see him sitting there at the kitchen table, too much after going through the ringer at therapy and she feels lightheaded.

He’s so beautiful. It’s only been 24 hours or so since she’s seen him last, but he’s so lovely that it’s almost hard to look at him. It’s like her poor distressed brain can’t begin to process him. She looks at the floor.

“Rae,” Finn begins, and she can’t help but glance up to see his features marred by anxiety. Their eyes lock for a minute, and Finn’s jaw works futilely. “I… I…”

His eyes dart away quickly to where Linda is standing with her back pressed up against the kitchen sink, watching them with a bland expression. When he sees her looking, his eyes drop down to the tabletop. Rae watches as he swallows thickly and his fingers tighten around his empty mug. His eyebrows furrow. She wonders what he’s thinking, what he’s doing here. Perhaps he’s here to put the nail in the coffin, finally end it once and for all. Or maybe… maybe Kester was right.

She tries to suspend her speculating, to live in the uncertainty rather than jumping to conclusions. It’s hard, almost harder than believing the absolute worst thing. But it’s a bit easier when she can look at him.

“Right then.” Linda announces abruptly, clearing her throat. Rae doesn’t turn her head, just continues to stare at Finn’s brooding, silent face. “I’m just going to go… upstairs. I’ll leave you to it.”

Rae senses her Mum moving, but she can’t seem to look away from Finn, like there are answers spelled out in the constellations of his freckles if she could only decipher the language. His jaw keeps clenching and unclenching. There’s a muscle that stands out in relief against his neck, and she thinks that she might be able to solve all the mysteries of the world if she just watches it long enough. Or at the very least, the mystery of them. 

“Not that either of you seem to realize I’m here anyway…” Rae turns towards the sound of her mother’s muttering just in time to catch a glimpse of her back as she leaves the kitchen, a line of water dampening Linda’s shirt from having leaned against the sink. As she watches Linda’s shadow retreat down the hallway, Rae almost wishes her Mum would come back. Almost wishes they could stay there, suspended in that last moment of not knowing, the last moment when there is still a possibility of them. 

Finn’s eyes are on her face when she looks back, and she drops her gaze to the floor, shifting her feet beneath her. The silence in the room feels thick, and Rae has a vague impression that there is still some third party in the kitchen watching as she and Finn try to fumble their way to a conversation.

“Who’s Kester?” He asks finally, and Rae glances up to see him twisting his mouth and staring at his hands.

“What?” She can’t understand what’s happening. What did he come here for? How does he know about Kester? 

Finn looks up and they lock eyes for a long second. His face is contorted and wary, almost like that morning after the rave, almost shifty. Her heart sinks and she exhales heavily. “Your Mum asked how it went with Kester. He a friend of yours?”

Rae stares at him blankly for a long moment, until something in her seems to crack and a curious weightlessness floods her. She doesn’t understand him, doesn’t know what’s going on here, and all of the sudden she just can’t take any more feelings about it. It’s too much. After yesterday’s wracking sobs and today’s cold self-loathing and the soul-searching in therapy, she just doesn’t have anything left in her. She’s got no more energy to hide, no more energy for anything other than the simple truth.

“Kester’s my therapist.” She says, and something in Finn seems to deflate. His face softens, his shoulders slump, and the tightness of his limbs loosens perceptibly.

“Oh.” The barest smile lifts the corners of his mouth. “I thought you was avoidin’ me.”

He shakes his head and huffs a single chuckle, like he wants the terrible heaviness of the moment to have dissipated, but can’t quite convince himself to believe it. Rae’s eyes trace a vein of blue in the fake linoleum floor as she dispassionately considers what to say. It’s a relief to be emotionless after the storm of feelings that’s been her life over the last couple of days, but it makes navigating the waters of this conversation tricky.

“I kind of was.” 

“Rae.” Finn’s voice is a plea, and she looks up. His eyes are wide and sorrowful beneath his raised brows, his cheeks are flushed and his mouth is twisted. “Rae, I’m so sorry.”

Some of her rogue emotions seem to trickle back in, and Rae glances at the back door, unable to bear his guilty expression. She doesn’t need him to be sorry that he doesn’t want her, she doesn’t need him to feel bad about not being able to stomach the bullshit of being with her. She just wants this to go away, she just wants to head up to her room and crawl in her bed and sleep for a year, sleep until she feels better, sleep maybe forever. She knows she should reassure him- after all, she can’t blame him for wanting out of a relationship with her. She’d love to get out of a relationship with herself.

Finn’s voice is low and serious as he continues, and she can feel his gaze on her face like the press of hot air from a heating vent. “I… I’m so so sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, believe me. I was really looking forward to spending time with you.”

“You fell asleep?” She jerks her head back to examine his face for signs of falsehood, but he just looks repentant.

“Yeah, what did you think had happened?”

“I dunno.” She shrugs, and the truth pours out of her. “I guess I thought you just didn’t want to see me.”

“No.” He says forcefully. He stands abruptly, his chair screeching across the floor, and strides quickly across the room until he’s standing in front of her. Finn places a palm on both of her cheeks and tilts her head until she’s meeting his concerned eyes. “No. Why wouldn’t I want to see you?”

“I guess… I thought after what happened at college the other morning, you’d finally seen how mad I am and had enough of me.” She can’t lower her head with the way he’s holding her, so she lowers her eyes as best she can, ashamed of her answer.

Finn drops his hands and backs away. When he replies, he lifts his hands uselessly, clearly frustrated. “Why would you think that, Rae? Did I give you any sign that I felt that way? I thought after that… you said you trusted me. Why don’t you trust me?”

Rae shakes her head, lifts her now teary eyes to the ceiling, trying to muster the strength to lie. But she can’t. She’s so tired, so spent that it has to be the truth.

“It’s not that. It’s me I don’t trust.” She swallows heavily once the words escape, but he’s shaking his head in bewilderment. Her voice is soft and halting as she explains, “It’s… I don’t trust that there’s anything in me that’s… enough to keep you.”

He’s standing a few feet away, as if her words and his frustration are creating a tangible barrier between them. She can almost see it, almost feel the stones in the invisible wall that surrounds her as he lifts his angry eyes to hers. His nostrils are flared, his jaw tight, and he lifts one hand, palm up. For a second, it looks like he’s reaching across the impermeable distance to get to her, but as he starts talking again, he drops his arm heavily to his side.

“That’s… that’s total bullshit. And you know it.”

“Just, just listen for a minute.” She begs, knowing it’s time. She’s been playing at something she’s completely unprepared to handle with him, and it’s time to lay the cards on the table and let it go. It’s probably the end, but at least it’ll be the right end. Maybe it’ll hurt less this way. “That day at the chippie, when you asked me if I was better? I lied. I’m not better, Finn. I’m not even close to better.”

Rae lifts her tear filled eyes to his, both hating to admit this, and relieved to not have to pretend. Finn’s jaw has softened, and his eyes are no longer cool and flinty, but he doesn’t move to close the distance between them. She tucks her arms behind her back and grips the counter, needing the solidity of it in her hands as she delivers the death blow to their relationship.

“I’m… I’m working on it. Or at least working on working on it. But I’m not better. I’m not normal, and I’m never going to be normal.” She swallows, looks towards the back door as she brushes an errant tear away. “And it’s not just that other people are gonna take the piss outta you for bein’ with me… I’m fucked up. So you’d have to deal with my shit, too. And you deserve better. You deserve to be with somebody normal.”

Silence falls as Rae stares down at her shoes. She can’t look at him, can’t stand to see confirmation in his eyes, or worse… pity. So she keeps her head down, focuses on pulling air through her contracted lungs. Why is it always so hard to breathe around him? That might be one benefit to not being with him anymore- maybe the air will be just air again, rather than some kind of conduit or barrier. It feels like ages since she’s had a clean breath that wasn’t laden with something more. She doesn’t look at him, tries not to guess at what he’s thinking from the angle of his boots.

“Are you done?” Finn’s voice is gruff and unrelenting, and she risks a glance at his face. He looks furious. She returns her eyes to the floor and nods. “Okay, now you listen to me. What about what I want? What I think I deserve?”

His voice cracks, and it’s enough to make her look up and examine his face. He looks hurt and teary, and Rae realizes with sudden clarity that she’s breaking up with Finn. The tears come a bit faster, and she’s not hiding anything anymore. She can’t look away.

“There’s no such thing as normal, Rae. Everybody has shit to deal with, everybody is fucked up in some way. You’re just… You know about it. You’re working through it. That’s more than most people.” His eyes are pleading, and he takes two steps towards her. His beautiful face is contorted and upset, and her heartbeat speeds up at the evidence of his distress. Despite the horrible truths she has to confess, she still hates hurting him. He swallows, shrugs helplessly for a moment. “I… I want you, Rae. I choose you, and I need you to choose me back. I don’t care that you’ve got stuff. I don’t care if you’re crazy. Everyone’s crazy. Everyone has to struggle and fight. I still choose you.”

“Not everybody.” Rae protests, proving she really is crazy. Why can’t she choose him back, why can’t she let his words be enough? She loves him, and he wants her. He just said so. Why can’t she just let it be enough? Why does she have to pick at it? “You’re not crazy, Finn. You’re sweet and wonderful… and you deserve better than me.”

He scoffs loudly, almost as if he’s choking on the words he’s trying to get out. “You what? I’m fucked up too. My Mum pissed off when I was eight, my Dad’s gone all the time, and the only woman who’s ever really loved me just died. I’m struggling too, Rae. I’ve got stuff.”

“Not the only woman.” Rae says in a whisper.

“What?” 

“Not the only woman.” She repeats and holds his gaze, willing him to understand, to hear what she’s not sure she can actually say. She loves him, but there’s a sick fear in her that the words are all that’s keeping her alive, and that if she lets them out, her insides will collapse around her own emptiness. Her love for him is the breath in her lungs, and if she gives it to him, she’ll suffocate.

Finn is still, completely motionless for several long minutes. Rae studies his face, tries to track the quicksilver emotions that flash across it, but so much is blocked by a layer of confusion. He doesn’t understand. But then, with a flash of something brilliant in his eyes, she can see that he gets it. The silence that follows is painful, and Rae struggles to keep looking at him under the fear that starts to press in. It doesn’t take long before she has to look away, tears slipping unhindered down her cheeks once more.

Of course, that would be the death of it all. Because who wants to be loved by someone like her.

A flash of movement causes her to raise her head, but she can’t track what’s happening because Finn is suddenly before her. Before she’s processed the movement, before her eyes have even adjusted to him standing so close, he’s grabbed her face with both hands and crashed his lips into hers.

He kisses her like he’ll die without his lips against hers, like he has to extract the words and the air from her lungs just to stay alive. She gasps into his mouth, and he slips his tongue between her lips, pressing more, demanding more, searching frantically for the thing she doesn’t want to give up. He tilts her head, changes the angle and shifts his hips tighter up against hers, until he’s all that she can feel. He surrounds her, overtakes her, until she feels like she’ll suffocate under the insistent pressure of his touch. He’s pulling it from her, withdrawing more and more as she desperately tries to keep up, keep from losing herself completely in him.

But then, it breaks. She surrenders. Where her lungs had felt tight, like they’d been clawing to hang on to the last bit of air within them, now they feel huge and blown out. She’s winded by the sudden influx of air. He’s breathing into her now, filling her back up with something infinitely sweeter than what he’s just pulled out. All this time she’d been afraid to be empty, she’d never even considered that he might have something to give too. 

The kiss turns softer, sweeter, more tender. It’s no longer a battle of wills, but a gentle give and take. Finn pulls away after another moment, rests his forehead against hers as he struggles to catch his breath. His fingers slip through her hair, his thumbs caressing gently down her cheeks. Rae glances up at him through her lashes, still cautious. It’s hard to trust that it’s real, that the intangible surrender she’d felt will have affected him the way it has her. 

His eyes are still closed, and she can’t interpret his expression through his pink cheeks and quiet panting. A tear escapes and slips hotly down her cheek, and Rae leans in the few inches separating them and steals another kiss, this one slow and lingering. Finn makes a hushed noise against her lips, moves to nuzzle his nose against hers when they break apart.

Rae’s breath comes easy, loose in the stillness of the kitchen. As his faint stubble scrapes against her cheek, the constellations in his skin realign and she’s suddenly able to understand, suddenly able to decode some of the secret language that has kept them apart.

She realizes that she doesn’t want to break up with Finn. She doesn’t want to let her illness win, let it beat out of her this huge wonderful thing she’s got. She wants to choose him over her sickness, choose him over how messed up she feels. She sucks in a huge breath, and as it washes over her, she picks him.

She closes her eyes, reveling in the newfound sureness. It’s as if all this time, she’s still just been deciding on him, and now she’s finally chosen. She’s going to choose Finn. He’s worth fighting for. They’re worth fighting for. She’s worth fighting for. 

So, no matter what tomorrow brings, no matter what idiot says something shitty, no matter what kind of misunderstandings cause her feelings to get hurt… she’s choosing to be in this. For Finn, and for herself. They’re worth it, she’s worth it.

“Rae.” Finn’s gruff voice brings her back from her wondrous contemplation, and she opens her eyes to find him staring at her sternly. He removes his hands from her face, places one at her waist and reaches with the other to pull her hand between them and entwine his fingers with hers. “Rae, I…”

“Right kids, I’m just going to pop over to the shop for a bit. You two behave now, alright? Finn dear, I’m making a hot pot tomorrow, if you want to come round for tea, yeah?” Linda’s voice sounds from the hallway, growing louder with each word. Finn groans audibly.

“Yes, Mrs. Bouchtat! I’ll be here.” He calls back with strained cheerfulness, and Rae starts to move out of his embrace, since she knows her mum will come into the kitchen at any second. Finn tightens his grip on her waist as she moves and growls, “No.”

Rae looks up at Linda standing in the doorway, and Linda grins back and waggles her eyebrows, making kissy faces at Finn’s back. Rae widens her eyes at her mum and jerks her head towards the door, and Linda waggles her fingers as she leaves the kitchen, still pursing her lips in an exaggerated kissing movement. Finn doesn’t move, doesn’t turn his head or loosen his grip, even after the front door slams.

“That woman…” Rae starts, but he cuts her off.

“No, no more.” Rae darts startled eyes to his face, worried at his determined expression. He can’t be breaking up with her now, can he? He had to have felt it too. His response to her albeit muddled confession was to kiss her. That has to be a good sign. And he said he’d come for tea. He can’t be breaking up with her.

His eyes are dark and serious as he gazes at her, and he lifts the hand that’s been holding hers and places it gently against her cheek once more. Rae leans into his touch, allows her eyes to drift shut for a second in pleasure. Finn steps closer, presses his body against hers until the countertop is a firm line against the small of her back. She arches just a little bit to get more comfortable, her breasts tight against his chest. She thinks that if she concentrates enough, she can feel his heartbeat pounding against her.

“I love you.”

It detonates like a bomb, shifting and changing everything as it passes by. His voice is gravely and quiet, and the stillness in the kitchen seems to press in on them as they stand in the epicenter of the blast zone. She watches his face, studies his eyes and the curvature of his lips, checking for sincerity. He doesn’t fidget under her scrutiny, doesn’t look away, just watches her as she allows this new reality to sink down deep into her. 

And then the rubble settles, and she sucks in sharply, inhaling air fresher and cleaner than any that’s ever passed her lips. She lets it fill her lungs, and with the exhale she’s kissing him again.

It’s different this time, there’s nothing to hide now, nothing to hold back. The kiss ignites the tinder that’s been building between them, and heat rushes through her like an inferno. It’s her that’s pressing in now, her that’s demanding and withdrawing. But there’s no reluctance in Finn, he gives readily, easily, and Rae soon has to pull back, gasping for air. She sucks in a great, unsteady gulp, then dives back in to the kiss. She reaches to grip him tightly, fisting a hand in his hair and another in his t-shirt at the back of his waistband. He groans, shifts hips until his growing hardness is evident against her stomach.

He moves a hand to cup the back of her neck, tilting her head and deepening the kiss. Rae moans breathlessly, lost to everything but the feel of his body against hers, his skin, his lips. She tugs him closer, grips his shirt tighter and shifts until her pinky is darting just underneath the waistband of his jeans, just barely grazing the sensitive forbidden skin. He growls, low and dangerous, and she lets go of his shirt to slip her hand further until her fingers touch the curve of his ass. A flash of his bare bum in the shower skitters through her mind, and she reaches down to grip him, pull him even closer.

He breaks the kiss to moan, then trails his lips down her neck, leaving a line of tingles in his wake. She tugs gently at his hair for a second, then lets go, sliding her hand down the back of his neck and across his shoulders to grip his bicep. Finn nibbles and sucks a path of fire down her neck, tugging the collar of her t-shirt aside to suckle at her collarbone. He nips at a particularly sensitive spot, and Rae cries out softly, arching her hips into him firmly. Heat floods through her at the feel of him hard against her, at the remembrance of what that hardness can do. 

“Upstairs.” She pants, unable to resist gripping his bum and grinding herself mindlessly against him. He doesn’t seem to hear her, but continues tugging at her collar, kissing the sensitive skin just below her throat. “Finn, upstairs. Please.”

She forces herself to get the words out without moaning, and he raises dazed eyes to her face and nods. His lips are pink and a bit swollen, his cheeks red, his hair tousled and sticking up, his eyes dark and lustful. He’s the sexiest thing she’s ever seen, better than Damon Albarn and the Gallagher brothers combined. She slips her hand out of his pants, and tugs at his where it’s buried in her hair. He releases her, and she slides out from between him and the counter, turns to grip his hand and lead him up the stairs.

Finn trips twice on the way up, barely catching himself, and it’s a measure of how utterly turned on she is that she doesn’t laugh. As soon as they’ve shut the door to her bedroom, he’s kissing her again, hot and demanding and needy. She forces him to walk backwards towards the bed while still locked in his embrace, only absently noting that her feet seem to have the right idea about where this is headed. When they get close enough, she puts her hands on his shoulders and pushes him down until he plops onto her CareBears duvet. She stays standing before him, and the heat in his eyes is searing as he looks up at her with a mixture of lust and affection.

She stares at him for a second, tries to fix his expression into her brain permanently. She never wants to forget this, never wants to forget how it feels to be loved and wanted by this beautiful boy. Then she takes a deep breath and tugs her shirt off. Finn inhales sharply, reaching for her before she’s even gotten the fabric over her head, slides his rough hands over the pale skin of her stomach. He tugs her closer, until her shins are touching the bed and his arms are wrapped around her.

He keeps his eyes on hers for a minute as she drops the shirt to the floor, his thumbs sliding along her bare back, sending shivers along her spine. Then he leans in with deliberate slowness and places leisurely, wet kisses onto her stomach. She moans, her brain unsure if she likes it or not, but her body filled with fire at his touch, her heart aching from his tenderness. She allows him just a second to kiss her before reaching down to unbutton her jeans and slide them down her hips. It’s only when she’s standing in front of him in just her underwear, his eyes searing as they rake over her exposed skin, that she realizes she’s wearing plain old cotton, not her sexy lingerie at all.

Rae has a moment of hesitation, of wanting to cover up, but it’s gone as soon as Finn’s hands are on her again. He touches her hips, slips his fingers over her thighs, then runs his hands up along her sides in a single smooth movement, resting them on her breasts. She reaches behind her with shaky hands to unclasp her bra, and he whimpers as she peels the fabric off. He moves back suddenly, sliding himself across the bed until his back is against the wall, then leans forward and grabs her hips, tugging her forwards until she’s straddling him. Rae groans as she feels him underneath her, separated by the frustrating layers of clothes between them, but he’s tugged her closer and drawn one of her nipples into his mouth and the thought is lost in a blaze of heat.

She grinds herself into him shamelessly, her body fruitlessly seeking his hardness where she needs it most. He sucks and nips and licks at her breasts, his hands helping ensure both are attended to. She moans and shifts and arches her back, trying to get closer, to demand more. Eventually, it’s enough. She can’t resist the heat that’s blazing underneath her skin, so she moves off of him and pushes him down until he’s lying beneath her on the bed.

She scrambles to undress him, pulling at his shirt until he sits up enough to let her remove it, then pushing his shoulders back down to the bed. She reaches for his jeans, unbuttoning them and tugging them off of his hips until they get stuck on his boots. She pulls those off, then his socks and finally his jeans. And then she takes a second, kneeling on her heels at his feet to look up at Finn, her beautiful, heart-stoppingly sexy Finn, mostly naked on her bed. She swallows heavily, rakes her eyes over his bare torso, then leans over to run a hand down his side, stopping at his hips. She moves until she’s crouched over him, kneeling between his legs, one hand on each hip. She glances up to find him watching her, pupils blown out in desire. She holds his gaze for a second, then bends to press a tentative kiss to his cock through the fabric of his boxers.

Finn gives a ragged cry, hips jerking involuntarily. Rae grins, gripping his hips a little harder to hold him down more firmly and does it again. 

“Ungh.” He groans, reaching down to grip her arms, sitting up a bit. “No, Rae. You can’t… I won’t… Not this time, ok? I want to… make love to you.”

She freezes, looking up at him, just on the verge of being hurt. Why doesn’t he want her to blow him? Is she doing it wrong? She hasn’t even really gotten to the good part yet. Finn’s eyebrows draw together at the confused expression on her face, and he sits up the rest of the way, pulling her up and stroking a hand down her hair with a soft smile.

“I won’t last.” He says, forcing her to meet his gaze. Oh. So, he must be really into this then. Into her. She bites her bottom lip against the smile that’s threatening. He’s really into her and she’s not even wearing her sexy underwear. He laughs at her expression, eyes warm. “I love you.”

She gives him a shaky smile, and he pulls her close, wrapping his arms around her and exerting gentle pressure until she’s lying on her back beneath him. He hovers over her, hands roaming swiftly, hips swiveling against hers. Rae moans, grabs his butt and pulls him against her. Finn seems to get the hint, and reaches trembling hands to slip her underwear down her legs, giving not even a second’s pause at the plain white cotton. He shifts above her to remove his boxers, bending down to retrieve a condom from his wallet and slip it on, and then it’s skin on skin all the way down, and she feels like she might just die from the pleasure of it, from the warmth that’s coursing through her body.

“Say it again.” She whispers as his eyes meet hers, and he adjusts so that he can touch her face and give her a slow, soothing kiss. She moans as he grinds himself against her, her fingers scrambling at his hips to pull him in, to feel him inside of her when he says it, inside of her in every possible way.

“I love you, Rae.” He murmurs against her lips, his voice tight and husky. Rae moans in pleasure, arches into him and he uses his other hand to wrap her leg around his waist. He hasn’t entered her yet, but everything is lined up just where it should go and it’s a blissful torment, the anticipation. He kisses her again, warm and wet and lingering. Her hips move, trying to draw him in, but he holds himself back for another second, gazing into her eyes before finally sinking into her. Rae gives a blissful moan as he whispers again, “I love you.”

Finn keeps a torturously slow pace as he makes love to her. Rae wants to beg and plead for him to go faster, for more more more, but a hush has come over them both. He looks into her eyes, swipes his fingers across her cheeks, drops down to kiss her slowly, reverently. The pressure inside of her builds with a painful languidness, a quiet increase that sears her synapses. It’s as if she can feel him overtaking every part of her, bit by bit. Finn conquers all the parts of her that she doesn’t like, burns away all the rotten bits, leaves her a raw, trembling mess as he goes.

Her fingers no longer scramble, but glide over the smooth planes of his back. They graze the thin, tender skin at his hips, slip slowly over the muscles and veins of his arms. Her leg wraps more tightly around him, pulling him in and reducing the force of his thrusts. Still the pleasure builds, the fire between them growing more and more fierce as they merge into a singular being. She can no longer determine where he ends and she begins, where her flesh and his flesh meet. They are only heat, only need, only air.

Rae throws her head back with a cry when she comes, and Finn kisses her exposed neck. He thrusts harder a few times before he finds his own release, and Rae watches as the pleasure overtakes his face and his eyes squeeze shut in bliss. She slides her hands up his trembling arms, watching with awe and wonder as his body is overcome with their connection. He’s beautiful. They are beautiful together.

Finn’s arms give out a bit, and his body presses into hers with an unfamiliar but comfortable weight. He presses his face into her neck, and she wraps her arms around him, twining her fingers in his hair. She can feel him smile against her skin.

From downstairs, they hear can hear the distinctive sound of the front door slamming.

“Shit!” Rae cries, shoving at Finn’s shoulder’s in alarm. Fuck, he’s heavy! She can’t move with him on top of her, and they have to move and quickly if they don’t want to get caught. “Finn, my Mum!”

“Fuck!” He grunts, leaping off of her and searching around frantically for his clothes. He grabs a tissue and squashes the used condom in it, then swivels his head madly until Rae points out the trash bin. He buries the tissue beneath an old magazine, bends down to grab his clothes. He tosses Rae’s bra in her general direction while hopping into his boxers, and she jumps up and starts looking for her shirt while putting it on. “Fuck fuck fuck!”

If she wasn’t quite so panicked, she might laugh at the absurdity of it all. Finn’s still swearing, one leg in his pants while pulling on his shirt. Rae’s located her underwear and slipped on her shirt, but she can’t seem to find her jeans. Then, horror of horrors, they hear Linda’s heavy tread lumbering up the stairs. Finn’s gotten his pants on and is making the bed when Rae discovers her jeans hiding underneath the pillow. She lunges into them just as he’s smoothed out the duvet, and they share a look of wide-eyed terror as they both rack their brains frantically for a way to look natural. In Rae’s bedroom, after just having shagged on her bed. 

“Bean bag!” Rae points victoriously, her brain finally supplying an option for what they might be doing. They plop down into it in a heap, rearranging their limbs into what looks like a casual and parental appropriate fashion. Finn heaves a sigh as they get adjusted, relieved to be in the clear, but something is nagging Rae with its unnaturalness. She glances around the room for any signs of what they’ve been up to. Their shoes are discarded at the foot of the bed, but that’s okay. Linda won’t find anything strange in that. But there’s something…

“Music!” Rae leaps up and dives across the room, turns on her stereo and presses play. She can hear Linda step on the creaky board on the landing, and she lunges back to Finn, collapsing in the bean bag chair beside him breathlessly. Finn grabs the nearest magazine, which happens to be one of Chloe’s fashion magazines, and frowns down at it in fake concentration. Rae adjusts herself in the chair and looks over his shoulder at it just as Linda swings the door open.

“Mum! Can’t you knock?” Rae exclaims as her Mum bursts into the room. Linda looks around for a minute, eyes lingering on the slightly disheveled bed before coming to rest on Rae and Finn, snuggled up together on the small beanbag. But either Linda doesn’t notice anything amiss, or she chooses not to say anything, because all she does is lean up against the door frame and cluck at them.

“Glad to see you two’ve made up then.” She says, shaking her head. “You’re no fun at all when you two are rowing, Rae.”

“Mum!” Rae hisses, a blush burning hot on her cheeks. It seems silly to be embarrassed about that, after what they’ve just done, after nearly getting caught in it, but she can’t help it. She’d really rather not have Finn know just how distraught she is without him.

“Alright!” Linda waves her hand in the air at them, then shuts the door as she exits the room. She’s almost closed it completely when she turns back and cracks it a bit, leaning in the small space to point at them with narrowed eyes. “Just keep the door open, yeah? I’m much too young to be a grandmother, change or no change.”

“Oh my God, Mum!” Rae exclaims, and Linda’s laugh echoes behind her as she heads back downstairs. Rae groans and ducks her head to rest on Finn’s shoulder, which shakes as he laughs.

“That were close. Jesus.” He chuckles, and she looks up and curls her lip in a sneer. He laughs harder at the face she’s pulling, and she has to look away to keep from smiling back. “Fuckin’ hilarious.”

“Easy for you to say. It’s not you who’d be subject to the wrath of Mum.” She widens her eyes in only half-faked terror. Rae shudders just thinking about what her Mum would do if she caught them. It’d be non-stop sex lectures for years. Uck.

Finn shrugs and grins. “Don’t matter. I’m sure I’d get it too, I’m not going anywhere.”

Rae grins, rubbing her face against the softness of his t-shirt over his shoulder. It’s a nice promise, a good thing to hold on to. She’d thought that about him before, after the panic attack at college, but this time… it’s different. This time, she’s made her choice.

“I love you.” She whispers, pressing her nose against his shoulder and looking up at him. His eyes are dark and serious as he looks back, but they’re warmed by the huge smile that’s lighting up his face. He turns his head to toss the magazine aside and reaches across to run his fingers through the fall of her hair, tucking them behind her ear and tilting her head so he can kiss her tenderly, the smile never leaving his lips.

Finn shifts so that he can wrap his arm around her, and Rae snuggles into his chest with a contented sigh. He plays with her hair absently, and for a few blissful minutes, everything is completely right with the world. But before long, Rae finds that the words have built up within her and she has to let them out, has to share them with this boy she loves so much.

“Finn?” She asks tentatively without raising her head. The sound of his heart beating beneath her gives her courage to tell him all the things she thought she’d never say. “You said earlier that you wanted me to choose you. Well, I do. I choose you. I choose you over all the crap that life is going to throw our way. It won’t be easy, you know that. People are shit, and I’m… well, I’m working on it. But I want to pick you over all of that. I choose you.”

Finn hums, a contented sort of sound, and presses a kiss against her hair. Rae lifts wide, loving eyes to his and he tugs playfully on her hair at the back of her neck, smiles down at her. “That’s good enough for me.”

He shrugs, and Rae laughs. Maybe, just maybe, she can choose to be good enough for him too. She can choose to work on herself, choose to try and get better, choose to believe him when he says that he loves her. And then maybe, in time, she’ll become someone who is good enough for Finn. In the meantime, at least he thinks she’s enough.


End file.
